


From Earth to the Other Dimensions

by EverythingPuddle



Category: Winx Club
Genre: Canon Relationships, Fairies, Friendship, Multi, OC in the background, Rewriting Canon a Little, Slow Burn, Witches, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2019-09-23 17:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 67,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17084711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverythingPuddle/pseuds/EverythingPuddle
Summary: Rewriting of Winx Club that literally no one asked for. Taking out filler and adding in things to make more sense. Planning on updating weekly.





	1. The Weirdest Meeting Ever

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a writing exercise, so if you have any constructive criticism please feel free to let me know.

It was almost eight-thirty in the morning and she was supposed to be up by now. Bloom had promised her that she’d set her alarm for eight so that she’d be up and ready to go to the shop in the morning. But here she was.

Quietly, Vanessa knocked on her daughter’s door. She knew thats something bad had happened with Andy yesterday, Bloom had come back earlier than planned and she’d been crying. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it with her parents but Mike had heard her on the phone to Selina and he thought that they’d broken up.

There was no response after several seconds so Vanessa pushed the door open.

Bloom’s room was a pigsty. There were clothes all over the floor, poking out of drawers that wouldn’t close, over the bottom of her bed and in a pile under Kiko as he snored softly, lying on his back with his plump belly heaving up and down. A book of Hans Christian Anderson fairytales was crumpled and open, spine up, a few inches from the limp hand that had been holding onto it last night. 

Vanessa perched carefully on the bed and picked up the book. It was open to the story of the Little Mermaid and she smoothed out the crease in the page, the bend making it look as if the mermaid’s tail was wonky.

When she was a kid, Bloom had loved these stories, demanding to be read one each night no matter how many times she’d heard them before. Secretly, she was pleased that her daughter still liked them, even if the books themselves were starting to look worn and dogeared. Bloom might be sixteen but she would always be her parents’ little girl, and Vanessa was still waiting anxiously for when she would start to pull away from her and Mike.

“Bloom, honey, it’s time to get up,” she said, reaching out a hand to gently shake her shoulder. Bloom grumbled incomprehensibly into her pillow, trying to swat her mother’s hand away from her.

“Sweetie, you’re going to be late.”

Her eyes flew open and Vanessa new that it had been a dirty trick, although not totally untrue, she hated being late. She got uncomfortable being a few minutes behind even when it was just a tough start time.

Bloom bolted upright, swinging her legs out of the covers and unsteadily travelling across the room, looking for clean clothes in the piles of laundry on her desk chair.

“What? Why didn’t the alarm go off?”

“I don’t know why the alarm didn’t go off, but you were supposed to set it last night so you could get up in time to come to the shop with me.”

Bloom pouted, considering momentarily just flopping on her bed and going back to sleep but she had promised to help out this summer. So she begrudgingly pick out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that she was pretty sure were clean.

“I’ve saved you some pancakes, so come down when you’re ready and we’ll get going quickly,” Vanessa said. She closed the door behind her so that Bloom could have some privacy as she dressed and yanked a brush through her hair.

Mike was reading his newspaper when she came down, his firefighter’s jacket on the back of his chair and his boots to one side.

“‘Morning,” he said, setting the paper down and reaching fro his coffee. “What are your plans today?”

“I’m going to the shop,” Bloom said, sitting down and starting on her plate of pancakes. “Then I’m going to get lunch with Selina, maybe I’ll hang around it town for a bit or go see Mrs Primrose with her.”

“Eldora is such a sweet woman, she was always very happy to babysit you when you were a kid. I’m sorry you aren’t able to go on holiday with her and Selina this year,” Vanessa said, checking the things she needed to put in her handbag. Phone, wallet, calendar, keys… “Maybe next summer.” 

She felt bad for not being able to send Bloom with her to Romania but it had been late notice and very expensive. What with the new business and the week’s holiday at the beach they’d already planned, there just wasn’t anything in the budget for a flight across Europe.

Bloom made a face at her mother’s back. 

She didn’t go to see Eldora because she had been nice when she was six, she went because when the three of them were together; her, Selina, Eldora, it just felt right. She felt embarrassed about it because, why couldn’t she form that kind of friendship with anyone other than a fourteen year old goth girl and an elderly lady? Certainly she had tried with her classmates for many years.

Mrs Primrose used to make perfume and often baked, inviting the girls to help her. Often, the two girls would pretend that they were really making magic potions - love serums when they had unrequited crushes, biscuit dough that would make Mitzy’s eyebrows fall out for when she had been especially mean - and this kind of play had carried on for longer than she cared to acknowledge.

The experiences with the other two, despite Eldora being at least fifty years older than them, were memories that Bloom would always keep close to heart. Long ago, the two girls had made the agreement never to try and hog Eldora for themselves and so they only went to the cottage together. Once, Selina had been out of town with her parents and Bloom had spent the whole week waiting for her to get back before she went to the cottage.

“Well, I’ll be back around five-thirty, provided I’m not needed on the job. How about you?” he asked his wife as she leant down to kiss him.

“I’ll be out a bit later than you, I’ve got to prep some bouquet’s for an evening order. We’ve got to get going, Bloom, sweetie, or we’re going to be late.”

Vanessa drove them to her florists’ in time to clean, prepare for the next delivery, and open at half past nine. Bloom’s eyelids were still drooping as she priced some of the potted plants, but she was glad it wasn’t one of the days when her mum had to go to the flower market for three in the morning.

The work wasn’t too difficult or all that stressful for her, Vanessa handled all the hard bits; the pig-headed customers and the unreliable suppliers. Kiko hung out mostly in the office, flopping in his bed and sleeping through most of the morning. The worst Bloom ever really suffered was some version of the “How funny! You’re called Bloom and you’re working in a flower shop!” conversation each day. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t wear her name badge but her mum insisted that it would be very unprofessional to not have one while she was working.

Bloom took charge of the shop at one so that Vanessa could take a lunch break, and she greeted the delivery boy as he unloaded several beautiful vases and two pallets of plant food. He was funny, and she caught herself flirting a little with him. 

It was alright, right? She didn’t have a boyfriend anymore so she didn’t have to ignore other guys.

She ended their conversation abruptly though, still unable to shake the feeling of guilt, and went to find her mum so that she could clock-out and head to lunch with Selina.

Kiko woke up as she clipped on his lead, wagging his tail as they left the shop and walked to the cafe. 

Selina smiled when she saw her approach and waved. She already had a cup of coffee in front of her and held it off the table as Bloom tied Kiko’s lead to one of the table legs. When she was done, Selina reached over to squeeze her hand.

“How are doing?” she asked.

“I’m alright.” Bloom momentarily considered telling her about the delivery guy but decided against it.

“Has he said anything else? Or is it still that ‘I think you’d be happier without me’ bullshit?”

Silently, Bloom retrieved her phone from her pocket and opened her messages. She slid it across the table so that Selina could read them. For a few moments, her eyes moved back and forth over the screen, brow furrowed.

“What the fuck? He basically just said that it’s because you don’t want to have sex with him yet.”

“I know. I want to talk to my mum about the break up, I think she knows that it happened, but I don’t want to have to get the sex-talk again. It was embarrassing enough getting it the first time round.” Bloom blushed slightly at the memory of her mum coming into her room, book about puberty under her arm, determined look on her face.

“Maybe talking to her would be a good idea, your parents are great. Mine would freak at the idea of me finding out that teenage boys don’t actually have Ken humps like they told me. Hey, I have something that might cheer you up.”

“What?”

Selina grinned and opened up her photos on her phone, sliding it across the table.

“Mitzy posted about how eggs are vegan because they aren’t from animals, they’re from birds. I got it all screenshot, comments included. Have a look at that, I’m going to order some food - do you know what you want yet?”

“No, I’ll go up in a minute.”

She did smile as she flicked through the Facebook posts that Selina had captured. Sometimes she felt bad for Mitzy, she didn’t have much of a filter and rarely thought things through for more than a few moments and the other popular students were really laying into her.

But it was only a fleeting emotion as she also remembered all the times that Mitzy had gone out of her way to be an asshole to her. Bloom had been riding her bike passed her house, an unfortunate occurrence whenever she had to go to the convenience store, while Mitzy was having her new, hot-pink scooter delivered next to her convertible.

She had started to loudly proclaim about how only losers didn’t have a car by now, and had to settle, for things like bicycles. Then there had been that comment on her t-shirt, something about being brave to wear it in public.

Bloom liked that shirt, it was one of her favourites, and her bike had been bought with love for her sixteenth birthday. She was a little embarrassed about how she’d acted when she had received it though, Bloom had let her desire for a car get the better of her and she knew her parents had seen her disappointment.

She made sure to ride it about whenever she needed to get somewhere on her own, just to let them know that she did really appreciate the gift despite her initial reaction.

Bloom was pulled out of her thoughts though, by Selina receiving a text message.

“ _Yes, Sweetie. It’s a shame Bloom can’t come to Romania with us. I’m hoping that there will be another year that the three of us can go together_.” 

She froze, staring until the message alert went away and she was just looking at the screenshots of Mitzy’s all-caps comments again.

The door swung open as Selina walked through, holding onto a sandwich and big plastic cup with a colourful straw.

“Hey, I got a large smoothie to share while you make up your mind… Bloom?”

Bloom slowly lifted her head to see the worry on her friend’s face. Betrayal curdled in her stomach as their eyes met, first Andy and now Selina? It felt like she’d been punched in the chest and her heart was pounding as she realised there was going to be a confrontation.

“You got a text while you were inside.” She was almost impressed by how calm she sounded, she certainly didn’t feel calm. When Andy had broken up with her she couldn’t stop crying and stumbling over her words. “It was from Eldora.”

Selina’s face fell, her guilt written all over her face. Hastily, she put her lunch down and reached for Bloom hand only for her to withdraw it from the table so she couldn’t be touched.

“Bloom, I can explain…”

“Really? Is there any other explanation than you’ve been seeing Eldora without me and that you’re going to Romania without me? You promised, Selina.” Bloom stood up abruptly, knocking the table and startling Kiko. She was aware that she was probably overreacting but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Look, Bloom, you have to understand…”

“No, I don’t. You could have told me, I’d have been alright with it eventually! And you could have just waited until I could come too!” Bloom struggled to untie the lead from the table, her fingers shaking with adrenaline. She wanted to make a quick exit now, she was trying to hold in her anger and upset before she made a scene on the busy street but she had lost her composure.

“That’s not fair! I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go another year, you know what my parents are like! Where are you going?”

“I know when I’m not wanted,” she snapped, finally getting Kiko free and grabbing her bag. Her jab didn’t sound anywhere near as cold or stinging as she’d hope, just rather pathetic. Bloom almost ran away from the cafe, although she doubted Selina would actually follow her. She was too stubborn and probably knew that it wouldn’t help.

She got to the end of the road before she realised that she was going the wrong way to get back to her mother’s flower shop and instead towards the town centre. She stopped on the corner, trying not to cry now that the hurt was outweighing the rage, the hunger, as she realised that she’d forgone lunch, didn’t help either. Maybe she didn’t want to go see her mum now anyway.

In the centre there weren’t many places to eat outside and she didn’t know if there were any dog-friendly restaurants. There were street vendors and a market stall but they only accepted cash. Sighing, Bloom opened her bag awkwardly and dug around for her purse to see if she had any change on her. There wasn’t very much but she decided it was better to buy an apple from the market and revisit her plans for lunch later.

Instead, she headed east and towards the big park. It was several square kilometres, surrounded by a wrought iron fence and containing a few playgrounds and clusters of trees. Kiko loved going and playing with other dogs and small children, he was a very energetic dog but very gentle. Bloom had never had any problem training him or keeping him under control.

School was out, but it was mostly empty at this time of day, only a few other dog walkers a couple on a picnic date. Kiko made friends with a miniature poodle and the pair played together until it was time for the other dog to leave. Bloom took a seat at the foot of one of the trees to watch as her dog chased the squirrels, and started her apple.

She let herself cry a little bit, knowing she would have to apologise to Selina before she left for Romania or she’d spend the summer feeling guilty.

Taking a deep breath, she wiped her face and looked around to realise that Kiko had run off somewhere. Turning her head and still not seeing him, she got up and ventured further into the copse of trees calling for him.

Bloom was about to go back and sit down again and wait for him to remember his recall when she saw what she could only describe as a flash of orange light. It was like a firework going off, or someone operating theatre lights, although it was far brighter than either of those.

Then she heard Kiko growling, something her playful dog never did, and she hurried in the direction of the sound. He was standing, hackles raised, at the edge of a small clearing, staring at what was happening in front of him.

Bloom’s brain couldn’t quite process what her eyes were telling it. There was a girl, maybe her age, dressed head to toe in orange and sparkles, blonde hair flying everywhere from her bunches. She looked like she was in some kind of extremely expensive halloween costume and, most bizarrely, she had wings and was… flying?

She was holding something too, like a staff or something. No, a sceptre? It looked like something out of a fantasy novel. She was twirling it around like a baton and when she pointed it ahead of her, a beam of glorious sunlight burst out of it.

The light hit something, and it disintegrated into golden dust. Bloom turned her attention to the other things in the clearing and her heart almost stopped.

A huge, hulking figure was hanging back, he had yellowed skin, gnarled at the joints and sprouting dark hair from its snubbed face. He was barefoot and his nails were a yellowish-green as he picked something up from the ground to fling at her.

That something looked like a cat, only with longer, more segmented legs and narrow, predatory faces. Dark in colour and with long, curved claws. There were at least twenty of them scattered around the area and leaping at her at intervals, trying to pull her back down to the ground and sink their claws into her.

Bloom was frozen in place, too shocked to even be scared.

The shining girl let lose another beam of light and the huge, yellow man charged at her. She tried to get out of the way but didn’t manage to dodge in time, instead getting caught by the arm and flung, hard across the clearing.

She crashed into the tree next to Bloom, making her jump, and she dropped her sceptre as she groaned in pain.

Bloom stared, for a fraction of a second, at her face in shock. There was something about her that was familiar and comforting, like a memory that she couldn’t quite grasp.

And then the girl gasped and coughed, spitting out a bit of blood, and Bloom was on her knees, helping her get to her feet. The girl smiled, griping her hand before standing in front of her and sending a small ball of light to turn one of the creatures to ash. Bloom’s heart sank as she realised that her new friend was considerably less powerful without her weapon.

“Thanks,” the girl said. “Urgh, I almost bit my tongue off.”

“Er… sorry?”

“Watch out for the ghouls, I’m gonna try and get the ogre!”

“Er… okay?” Bloom didn’t know what to say. But she didn’t have time to think about her situation because, the moment her friend launched herself at the ‘ogre’ Bloom was set upon by one of the small creatures. It clung to her leg, trying to bite through the hem of her jeans with its fangs.

She let out an undignified scream and took several steps back before vigorously shaking her leg until her trousers ripped and the ‘ghoul’ went flying, a piece of her jeans in its mouth and blood starting to bead where its teeth had been.

There were more surrounding her now, she hadn’t been paying attention to them while she had been seeing to the girl. Awkwardly, she used her bag to try and fend them off by swinging it at them.

Kiko, however was better equipped to deal with them, and he bared his teeth and snapped at them, driving them back. Bloom hoped that this would be enough.

Then she heard her dog yelp and whimper as Kiko was slashed by a set of claws. She heard the pain in his whine and she saw red. Her face flushed hot with rage, it felt as if her blood was boiling in her veins. The fear that had been seizing her body was burnt away.

“Get off him!” she yelled, reaching for the offending animal. Somehow, there was an aura of heat and bright fiery red around her that sent all the offending ghouls flying and shattering into ash. Kiko’s gash seemed to heal over as she snatched him up into her arms.

As she turned her attention to the rest of the area, the heat and light exploded away from her, stunning the ghouls and ogre, who thankfully drop the sceptre he had been wrestling the girl away from.

Her friend too advantage of this turn of events snatched it back, retreating over to Bloom, pointing it at him and narrowing her eyes.

“There are two of us now, get away from me and never come back.” There was an authority in the girls voice that made her seem taller and stronger. Bloom found herself hoping, for his own sake, that the ogre left.

The thing squinted at her, then looked at Bloom, evaluating the situation before he whistled the ghouls back to him and clapped his hands. He faded from sight with them, almost seeming to disappear into the air around him.

The girl turned to her and smiled, before her eyes slid out of focus. Her glittery clothing faded and she sank to her knees, Bloom reached out to grab her before she could hit the ground.

“Thanks again,” she said weakly, a hand on the supporting arm. “I’m so glad he left when he did, I don’t think I could have stayed standing any longer.”

Bloom held onto her for a few minutes while the girl rocked back and forward, making a couple of retching noises.

“Sorry,” she said, weakly. “I always get a bit faint whenever I use that much of my magic. Hey, can I know your name? I’m Stella, Princess Royal of Solaria.”

“I’m Bloom, and I have so many questions.”


	2. The Weirdest Day Out Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly earlier than I had planned to post, but since AO3 will be down during the only time I would have been free to post before the 27th, now it is.

Stella laughed, pulling herself upright so that she was kneeling. Her grip on Bloom’s arm felt strangely reassuring when her heart was going a mile a minute. Did that count as her first fight? It kind of had to…

“I have some questions too,” she said. “But do you think we could get just a few out of the way each and then get some food. I’m absolutely starved after that.”

“Sure… do you want to go first?” Bloom was regretting not buying more food so that she could give Stella something to eat now. At least she’d get company for lunch.

“Yeah, thanks… what dimension are we in?”

“Er…” Bloom’s brain scrambled for words. “Earth?”

“What? That’s way off where I was headed!” Stella laughed and blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Damn, the teachers are right, I so need to practice more. Alright, you’re turn for a question now.”

“Are you… a fairy?” 

God that sounded stupid. 

It might just be the stupidest thing that Bloom had ever said out loud. 

Granted, she couldn’t think of an explanation that wasn’t supernatural - flying girls in magically changing outfits, little creatures turning to ash when they were touched by light, light coming from a magical sceptre, a giant yellow man trying to steal the magical sceptre… that was all definitely not normal - but why she was choosing ‘fairy’ as her go-to possibility was beyond her. It just felt more… right than witch, or mage, or demon or whatever.

She read those children’s books too often.

“Of course I’m a fairy, I use magic just like you!”

The bottom dropped out of Bloom’s stomach. She wasn’t going crazy, she had just seen what had actually happened, and somehow she was a part of it. Clearly, she was either dreaming or she was unknowingly taking part in the world’s most elaborate prank show. And… what?

“Wait, am I a fairy?” The look that Stella gave her made her feel stupid.

“You have some major magic, girl! You have to have known that you had that in you, that kind of magic never happens as the first instance!”

“That really was the first time I’ve ever done something like that!” There was an urgency in Bloom to make sure Stella believed her. “I don’t even know if I could do that again. It’s kind of made me feel really tired.”

She helped Stella up, each girl leaning on the other until they were both on their feet.

“Yeah, it’s what happens when we use a lot of our powers. Let’s get something to eat and we can keep talking,” Stella said, dusting herself down. “Am I wearing the appropriate clothing for Earth?”

Bloom watched in awe as the girl picked up her sceptre and it shrank into a blue-silver ring, the face of it bearing the same pattern as the head of the sceptre it had been just a second ago.

The answer to her question was no, she absolutely wasn’t. Her silken, orange dress, adorned with silver and jewels was too ostentatious to be worn in public, not to mention the areas of clothing that had been strategically cut out which made it look like some sort of red carpet gown than everyday fare.

Bloom helped her take off the rather ornate headpiece that she was wearing, removing what felt like thousands of bobby pins to free her hair, and gave her the hoodie she had in her bag. It mostly covered the precious metals and stones worth at least a few thousand. Stella looked a bit mismatched in the borrowed sweater, with Bloom’s high school name and insignia, and glamorous wedge shoes.

They were able to find a place that had a bowl of water and a treat for Kiko, and Bloom bought them both big lunches. Stella wanted to pay but, when they inspected the array of coins she had on her, she was convinced to get the next meal that they had together where her currency was more appropriate. It gave her a warm feeling that Stella was already thinking about a next time.

“So,” Bloom said cautiously. “Where are you from?”

“Solaria, the kingdom of the sun and the moon,” she said proudly. “And I’m the Princess Royal. Look, that’s my dad.” She held up the face in profile on the side of one of her coins.

“Then… what happened?” Bloom asked in a hushed voice. How could a fairy princess get stuck in the wrong dimension with an ogre and ghouls attacking her? 

More importantly, was she really believing this? But then again, how was her being royalty any more ridiculous than the other things in this situation?

“I was travelling to Magix - another dimension - when something hijacked the spell I was using. It grounded me in the nearest world - here - and that’s when I was set upon by those gross things,” Stella declared and then looked sheepish. “I was supposed to have taken guards with me, but its not like any of them know any magic so they really wouldn’t have been any help even if they had been there.”

Bloom wasn’t sure that she agreed with that. 

Stella went on to tell her more about Solaria, it was a place with three suns and many moons. It was never night there and she confessed to finding it hard to sleep in other dimensions during the dark periods.

She only spoke briefly about her parents - her father, Radius, was the King and embodied the Suns, and her mother, Queen Luna, represented the Moons. Stella didn’t give her the impression that her parents were very happy, with her or each other.

“So, where are you really from?” she asked, after she finished an anecdote about her father’s aviary that left Bloom with many more questions than it had answered.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you can’t be from Earth, there haven’t been fairies on Earth in over a hundred years! It’s a nice place here, though, if a little quaint.” Stella shrugged.

“No, I’m from Earth. I have a birth certificate from the old hospital here in Gardenia and everything,” Bloom said. “I have no idea how I got magic.” It felt wrong even saying that, she didn’t really believe that any of this was true.

“Hm,” Stella didn’t look convinced. “I suppose it’s possible that you’re descended from one of the last fairies and it’s just been a dormant power in the family until you… What are your parents like?”

“Mum is a florist, I help out in her shop during the holidays and Dad’s a firefighter for the city. They’re really nice, but I don’t think they’ll have any answers for me.”

“Oh, the last fairy would have been well before them anyway.”

“No, I mean, I’m adopted. My parents have this folder about my birth so I know where and when but it was a closed adoption so I don’t have any way of finding out about my biological parents.” Bloom put her fork down, a bit embarrassed to have shared something so personal with a stranger. It wasn’t a secret at school that Mike and Vanessa weren’t her birth parents but it also wasn’t something that people bothered talk to her about either.

Stella, to her credit, seemed to sense that she was uncomfortable and gave her a kind smile.

“Shall we get some coffee? I’m still absolutely knackered.”

Bloom went in to order them some while Stella stayed outside with Kiko, who seemed very content to sit on her lap and present her with his belly for rubs. Through the glass she could see the princess obliging, if a bit lethargically.

She knew nothing about magic but it occurred to Bloom that it probably required a lot of energy to perform - that was a physics thing, right? Conservation and transfer of energy. To do any of the stuff that she’d seen, Stella must have expended a lot of energy, and she would need to do the same to transport herself wherever she was going. Probably. What did Bloom know?

Looking at her, it seemed unlikely that she would manage it. The girl was minutes away from keeling over from exhaustion despite the dinner she’d just eaten. Bloom resolved that, if the coffee didn’t revive her, then she was going to have to volunteer her bedroom as a place for her to stay.

She brought their cappuccinos out and Stella started to drink hers quickly, closing her eyes when the steam hit them.

“Where were you headed again?”

“Magix… it’s the central dimension and the origin of all the magical powers in the universe. I was going because I need to put in my application form for the new year at one of the schools there.” She hurried over the last bit, but Bloom was too intrigued to let it slide.

“There are schools? Like Hogwarts?”

“I… don’t know? But it’s this huge pink palace run by all sorts of the the universe’s most powerful people so that the next generation of fairies can be taught how to use their magic. I went last year but I need to repeat it.” Stella grimaced and Bloom decided she would wait to ask about why that was, but then she grinned. “You should absolutely put in an application too.”

“But wouldn’t that be really expensive? I mean, you’re a princess…”

“Money can’t buy magic. There are loads of scholarships and grants, pretty much all tailored for girls like you so that you can attend.”

“I don’t even know how to get to Magix, let alone enough about the school.”

“I’ll tell you what, when I get my strength back I’ll show you the interactive leaflet they give out and you can see more of what it would be like. I’d love to start the year with a friend, I bet I could get the Head of Rooms to put us in a suite together…”

“I think I’d like that,” Bloom said. “I don’t really want to go back to my high school… if this place…”

“Alfea.”

“If this, Alfea, is a place I’d like to go.”

“What’s wrong with your high school, besides the obvious.”

“My ex-boyfriend goes there, pretty much my only friend has just decided to go behind my back about something important to me and I’m pretty sure my just existing is drawing the ire of the school bully. I just… I want a change.”

“Hey. Gut feelings are really important for fairies and if you’re feeling like you need to get out of your current routine then you should listen to it,” Stella said firmly. She looked at the bottom of her cup and sadly drained the last of the coffee into her mouth before yawning. “I suppose I’m going to have to find a place to sleep for a bit before I leave.”

“You’re welcome to stay at my house, it’s not a palace but my parents are nice.”

“That would be so great,” Stella said, looking relieved. She’d clearly been fishing for the offer. “Are you sure they won’t mind? If you think it’s been a lot to find out about being a fairy, imagine how your parents will react.”

“We have some time before either of them get back from work, but it is a bit of a walk.”

“I could probably manage a walk, shall we go?”

“Sure, sure.”

They wandered slowly back towards Bloom’s house, holding hands with Stella leaning a little on her. The girl was only little taller than her in her high shoes. She was given an appreciative smile from her new friend.

“You have really bailed me out. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met you, probably had to jump through hoops to get in contact with my dad, and then the whole of Earth would have known about it.”

“It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t come with all his royal guards,” Bloom laughed.

“I know… hey, I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore, tell me about your ex-boyfriend, why did you guys break-up? Was he jealous of all the attention other boys were giving you?” Stella giggled.

“Oh, stop it, I don’t get a lot of attention.” Bloom flushed, feeling like she was being teased since, next to Stella and her perfect hair, she looked like a mouldy potato. Even with the swelling on her face from the fight, the princess was gorgeous.

“What’s wrong with earth boys?!” she said, and then narrowed her eyes. “You know what, I think I know a guy that would be perfect for you.”

“The break up is still quite fresh…”

“And that’s why he’d be perfect, you go on a few dates with him, have a good time for a little while and then you’ll be like ‘ex-boyfriend-who?’,” she chuckled. “Pretty much what I do whenever I have a break up. But not with this guy. I’m not giving you my leftovers or anything.”

Bloom let Stella tell her about the guy, although it was mostly to of curiosity about other dimensions and the people in them.

He was called Hester and he went to a school in Magix, not one of the main three as he had very little magic and was choosing to study to become an architect instead of a Wizard or a Specialist (Bloom made a mental note to ask what one of those was when Stella next took a breath). He was cute and, according to some of the girls at his school, was an absolute gentleman on dates.

The walk back to the house felt a lot shorter with Stella and she unlocked the front door so that they could both fall onto the couch. Bloom put the TV on but it faded quickly into the background as Stella promptly fell asleep, snoring softly into the arm of the sofa.

She was drifting off herself when Kiko gave out a short, loud bark and the front door shut loudly. Mike grumbled something under his breath as she heard him sit down on the stair heavily to take off his boots.

There was a beat before Bloom scrambled to disentangle herself from Stella. It would be best to try and explain things before he met the girl still sleeping on their sofa.

“Bloom?” he said in surprise as she rounded the corner to the hall. “I wasn’t expecting to see you at home.” Oh right, she was still supposed to be out.

“Er, Dad?” She wasn’t sure what to say. How did you tell your parents about the fairy passed out in the living room?

“Yeah?”

“I… have a friend over. She’s not feeling well so she’s asleep right now.”

“Selina’s ill? I’l call Tony and have him pick her up…”

“No. It’s, it’s not Selina.” Bloom was mildly offended by her father’s surprise that she had more than one friend although she probably shouldn’t have been. “It’s Stella.” Mike didn’t look anymore enlightened. 

“Well, it’ll be nice to meet a friend of yours. Will she want any dinner?”

“Yes, I think she will.”

“I’m going to finish the paper before I get started on the pasta - she’s not a vegetarian is she?”

“Er… no.” Bloom scrambled to think back to earlier today and decided that yes, Stella’s pasta dish at lunch definitely had ham in.

She left her dad alone so that he could unwind and went to turn the TV off. She was about to fix a blanket over Stella when she saw a dark red mottling forming over one side of her face and over her forearms. There wasn’t a hope in hell that Mike wouldn’t notice that the girl was covered in bruises.

Bloom sat in one of the armchairs for a while, trying to think of excuses that her parents might believe. Anything but the truth would end with her dad trying to call the police. Hell, he might even call them if it was the truth she told. 

Vanessa arrived soon after, greeting Mike with some rejected lilies before washing off the pollen and going to give Bloom as kiss. She paused at the sight of the sleeping girl, mouthing ‘your friend?’ as she walked passed, but continued on so that she could hug her daughter.

“Your dad says this is a friend of yours?” she whispered when Bloom didn’t answer her the first time.

“Yeah, she’s called Stella, I ran into her today and she’s lovely. But it’s been a weird day.” Vanessa looked at her quizzically but seemed to accept that she needed to wait for more information. She got up to go back to the kitchen and for a moment, Bloom thought that she’d delayed the inevitable reveal of Stella’s injuries until her mother paused to look at the girl’s face and blanched.

“Bloom… what happened? She’s just covered in bruises!” her eyes went wide, looking between her daughter and the girl on her sofa. “Is everything okay at her home?” 

“Er…” She knew that technically things weren’t great for Stella with her parents, but she probably shouldn’t lie about that. Bloom wished that they’d talked about what they would tell her parents before she’d fallen asleep.

“She got attacked…” Bloom started, not knowing really where she was going with this. “And then I invited her here…” she trailed off at the look on her mum’s face.

“Mike,” Vanessa quickly walked to poke her head into the kitchen. “I need you in here.”

Bloom’s stomach sank. This was going to end so badly, and she was going to be in so much trouble. 

Her father wandered back through to the living room, still holding a tea towel, and looked expectantly at his wife. She rolled her eyes at him before pointing dramatically at Stella’s face.

“Holy moly,” he said. “What happened to her?”

“Bloom says she found her after she was attacked, we need to do something, Mike!” Vanessa was trying very hard not to raise her voice and failing. Bloom wished that the floor would open into a sinkhole and swallow her up.

“Oh my…” he leaned over a little to get a better look. “I should call the police, we need to at least file a report. They’ll be able to give her some advice too, in case she needs help. Who knows, maybe if we call in soon they’ll be able to catch whoever did this.”

“That would be difficult.” Stella hadn’t opened her eyes but she was giving a half-smile when she spoke. “I imagine they’d find it hard to believe that an ogre attacked me with a full compliment of ghouls because I’m a fairy.”

When she did open her eyes, they were all staring at her. Bloom included. She had thought that maybe Stella would try to be subtle about it, after all, she did seem to understand that Earth was very different from Solaria and that she shouldn’t draw attention to herself.

Stella sat up, smiling.

“Princess. Fairy princess.”

“I think I should call an ambulance,” Vanessa said, making her way to landline. They were in serious trouble if her mother followed through with that, because she was pretty sure that Stella wasn’t human and medical professionals were definitely going to notice that fact.

And then there was the fact that an ambulance was probably code for a mental health nurse too. Maybe Stella would be able to bluff her way out but she had said if she spent too long here unaccounted for her father would be sending imperial guards.

She was having visions of fairy guards and magical knights descending on Gardenia. That would be quite some way for planet Earth to discover they weren’t alone in the universe, and it would be all her fault.

“No!” Bloom winced, she’d said that too loudly. “I mean, she’s telling the truth, I saw her use magic and I saw the ogre. It was real.”

Vanessa’s mouth opened and shut before hanging open again. Bloom was certain she’d never sounded so unconvincing. Her mum looked like she was trying to come up with any kind of response, but her stomach dropped again when she saw the look of anger on her dad’s face. It was an expression usually reserved for when he talked about hoax callers and she wanted to run from the room.

“Dad, I…”

“Prove it.”

Bloom stared at him, and then stared at Stella who didn’t seem to have registered his rage. Stella smiled again and shrugged her shoulders.

She shuffled around to get comfortable again and closed her eyes for a few moments as if she was concentrating really hard. There was an awkward pause as nothing happened.

“Sorry,” said Stella, eyes still shut. “I really wasn’t very attentive at school last year.”

Vanessa was about to say something, possibly to reaffirm that she was calling an emergency service, but the old-style telephone suddenly morphed, the receiver was now a long carrot balanced on top of a cabbage where the dial stand had been.

“Awesome, I finally managed that. It’s a real shame there was no one here to grade that because that is a perfect transfiguration.” Stella grinned and swung her legs out from under her. “In no time you’ll be able to do that too, Bloom.”

“What?” her mum was turning her head between the two girls as if she could glean more information out of just looking at them.

“Bloom has some seriously strong magic too! She totally saved me against that ogre, saved Kiko too!” Stella rearranged the blanket so that it was covering her toes. “I did actually want to talk to you about that.”

“So Bloom has magic too,” Mike said sharply.

“Yes.” Stella nodded, her face serious at his tone.

“And you could help her with that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. How can we help you?”

“Oh,” Stella blew air out from between her lips. “I need a place to stay for tonight until I can get in contact with my parents… not on Earth.” Vanessa let out a squeak. “And maybe some dinner, I am starved.”

“Of course. You are welcome to stay and have dinner with us, plus any food in the house if you’re still hungry after that.”  
“Mike!”

“Talk to me in the kitchen, Bloom, take Stella upstairs and set the air mattress up for her, okay?” 

Bloom nodded silently as she watched her mum file into the other room with a dark expression. Stella, reading the atmosphere, got up quickly and headed towards the stairs.

“Which one is your room?”

Bloom showed her her rather messy room and embarrassedly moved piles of clothes off the floor, kicking a dirty pair of her underwear under the bed so Stella couldn’t see the humiliating pink, cat pattern on them.

“I’m sorry if I caused things to be unpleasant with your parents,” she said, taking a seat on Bloom’s desk chair.

“It’s okay, all that’ll happen is they’ll have a quiet discussion downstairs and it’ll be sorted.” Her parents didn’t fight seriously in front of her, they always sent her to her room or retreated away from her to actually hash things out before finding her to explain the outcome.

“Must be nice to have parents that do that,” Stella mused. “But since your parents need to have a serious conversation, why don’t we have one of our own? What do you think about coming to Alfea with me?”

“I…” Bloom wanted out of her current High School. She wanted to be far away from Mitzy and Selina, with someone who was really enthusiastic to be around her, like Stella. A fresh start sounded felt like just what she needed. But this would be running off to another world, with a girl she barely knew, leaving everything familiar behind.

“I have that interactive leaflet if you want to have a look? You don’t have to give me an answer now, hell I don’t actually have any power over admissions, but I would call them if you wanted me to.”

“I’d like to have a look at the brochure, but first… why me?”

“What?”

“Why do all this for me? I was just in the right place at the right time to help you and we don’t know even each other.”

Stella smiled, taking out the leaflet and putting it on the desk before going over to hug her. Bloom froze for a second but wrapped her arms around her too.

“Because you’re a fairy and we work awesome together and I want you to be in my suite for next year. I might actually want to go to class if you’re there too,” she laughed. “But seriously, there’s something exceptional about you and exceptional fairies belong at Alfea. Nothing else to say about that. Now, I would try and shove you into this brochure, but I need to eat and sleep before I do anymore magic.”

Bloom smiled, awkwardly trying to keep back tears from the oddly touching speech. Her desire to be liked and be around Stella was very similar to how she felt about Selina and Mrs Primrose, only Stella was a lot less aloof that the other two.

“So, I do have some questions,” she said, sitting on her bed. “Maybe they’ll be in the information pack but humour me.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Do you get taught regular subjects at Alfea too? Like…” she paused to come up with an example after Stella stared at her. She supposed ‘regular’ was subjective. “Maths, or Chemistry.”

“Oh yeah. Couldn’t call it a rounded education if they didn’t. Tends to be we do stuff like Magical History and Literature - Maths and Chemistry - in the morning and then different Magical Application classes after lunch.” Stella’s eyes glazed over a little. “Then there’s sometimes scheduled sport after that and before dinner every other day-ish. Hated that, that was the worst. Especially because if you don't have sport you can go into Magix and shop.”

“And, how hard are the Magical Application classes?”

“Well,” she looked at her guiltily. “I’m terrible at them. I barely scraped through half of them and straight up failed the rest.”

“Will they kick you out if you fail?”

“I mean… I got kicked out, but that was more of a chemistry incident than anything. They’d try and tutor you first, don’t worry about it.”

Bloom didn’t find that too reassuring but they needed to get on with blowing up the lilo and setting up the bedding. Bloom made sure to offer the actual bed to her royal guest, which Stella took, so they changed the sheets for that too.

When they went to get dinner, her parents were still talking quietly but happy to let them help themselves to the pasta and bolognese.

“Is it serious?” Stella asked once they were back in the bedroom.

“Nah,” Bloom shook her head. “It just means Dad really thinks he’s right. Besides, they probably got derailed while dinner was cooking because Mum is convinced he’s using metal utensils on the non-stick pans.”

“Huh, I don’t usually cook so I didn’t understand most of that.”

“Oh, er… it’s not actually very interesting. You probably have servants for that, right?”

“We call them chefs, but yeah.” If Stella saw Bloom go red, she pretended not to.

“Hey, I have another question for you.”

“Sure, sure.”

“How come we can understand each other? I mean, we don’t even all speak the same language on Earth so how…?”

“Simple, one spell that I can do is polyglot charm that basically means that you hear what I’m saying in the language that you’re most familiar. I don’t even have to have heard of it before for it to work.”

“Is that why you’re still tired after the nap and the food?” Stella made a face and held her hand out to wobble. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, silly! If I wasn’t doing it then we’d just be sitting opposite each other smiling politely and doing nothing else.” Stella rolled her eyes, but in a friendly way.  
They lay on their beds for a while, Bloom asking about Solaria and Stella indulging her, occasionally with visual aids from her phone. There were many photos of Stella with a variety of extraordinary birds, each with fantastic plumage and wonderful colours. She was so close to begging her for an invite it was embarrassing. Who wouldn’t want to go to a real royal palace for the summer?

Stella way half way through a medley of photos of the network of pools, holding her hand over part of the screen so that the old boyfriend that was in the picture too couldn’t be seen, when Vanessa knocked on the door, opening it slightly as she did.

“Hi girls,” she said. “I brought you some ice cream.” Bloom took the tub and spoons suspiciously since her mother never just handed out desserts and certainly never a whole pint. “And we had a few more questions for you, Stella.”

“Sure.”

Bloom sat in the corner awkwardly as her mother grilled Stella for a solid half hour. During the time she learnt, disturbingly, that if she didn’t learn to control her power she could hurt people, that Alfea School for Fairies was one of the most exclusive and prestigious academies there was (which begged the question of why Stella thought that Bloom was getting in), that Stella had already sent a message home that she was okay, and that her household was contacting the admissions department for them.

Vanessa’s eyes widened at that until she was assured that all that would happened was an admissions officer or secretary would visit to talk to them.

Then she said that now Bloom had used her powers, nominally, for the first time, she was going to be more visible to other magical beings which could put her in danger. Bloom’s ice cream fell off her spoon at that.

“She could be in danger?”

“Possibly, I mean, there aren’t any regulations in place to keep her safe here, although there shouldn’t be any predators on Earth either…”

“But there also shouldn’t be fairies on Earth.” Stella nodded and Vanessa grit her teeth.

“Well, I suppose we wait to hear from admissions.”

Her mother left the room and Bloom just kind of stared after her. Her mum had looked like she was pulling out her own nails during the whole conversation, Vanessa was usually more optimistic when it came to challenges, her whole attitude was a surprise to Bloom.

The two girls finished their ice creams quietly.

“Predators?” she finally asked. Stella looked embarrassed.

“They aren’t very common. Don’t think there’s been an instance of anything happening to new fairies for yonks, but we were always warned about them…”

“And you thought it might help persuade my mum?” Bloom laughed and Stella had the decency to look embarrassed as she grinned back..

“Shush,” she swatted the air with her hand. “It was my duty as an upstanding member of society to warn you about it.”

“Sure, sure.”

They decided to turn in for the night no long after. Stella was having trouble keeping her eyes open after the day’s exertion and all the food she’s eaten, so pyjamas were leant and the light was switched off.

Bloom lay on the air bed and stared up at her ceiling. When she had been younger, she had been deathly scared of the dark, enough that her dad, tired of getting up to turn various lights on when she woke up in the night, had glued glow-in-the-dark stars onto the ceiling.

They shone softly at her as Stella’s breathing verged on snoring again, and she wondered just what would have happened if she hadn’t seen that text to Selina.

Far away, in a different dimension, the ogre was breathing heavily as he undid the locks to a cell, letting out the giant snarling beast inside.


	3. The Weirdest Conflict Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we still only on episode 1? Should be in episode 2 part way into chapter 4 and then it'll be a chapter per episode (not counting the weird filler of course) and the pace will pick up a bit.

It turned out Stella was a lot harder to wake up in the morning than it had been to put to bed the night before. It got to past nine in the morning, by which time both of her parents had gone to work and Bloom was getting hungry. She’d tried calling to her, which got no response, and then shaking her shoulder. The princess had said something in a very strange sounding language that Bloom felt had probably included a few rude words.

In the end, Bloom just let her sleep and ate breakfast on her own. It was probably best that she let her sleep for as long as she needed if Stella was going to do more magic for her.

She still didn’t really understand how her life had done a one-eighty in a single day but she felt like she was looking at her life in mirror-image. She was a fairy. 

She was a fairy!

She should probably ask Stella if fairies were like the ones in her books. Of the magic she’d seen Stella do, and of what she had apparently done herself, it seemed to be kind of like what fairies and witches did in folklore. Or, at least, in the versions that she’d been reading.

Bloom eyed the pile of school work that was sitting on the coffee table in the living room. Every year she would say to herself that she’d get a head start on it and every year she’d manage to leave most of it to the end of the holiday.

As much as this would be a perfect time to get on with some of it, what was the point if she was going to transfer school? Was she changing schools? Maybe they’d want to see examples of her current work to see if she was good enough.

She decided the best thing to do was to start reading the book for the book report. If they wanted to interview her, maybe she could say that these kinds of book were a hobby of hers.

She was a couple of chapters in when Stella emerged. The borrowed silk-ish pyjamas were a bit big on her, and hung off her hips and shoulders, the dark colour of them drawing the eye to the darkening purple bruises on her face and poking out of her sleeves from the beating she’d taken the day before.

“Morning,” she said, sleepily. “Is there anything I can eat?”

Bloom fixed her up with some toast and cereal and them let her eat her way through two bags of crisps. Stella then settled on the sofa in the living room, struggling not to slip into a food coma, pulling her legs up and under her.

Stella grinned and pulled out the leaflet.

“You up for having a look now?”

She couldn’t tell what it was that Stella did, but the thin piece of paper stretched out over the table and seemed to ripple on the surface. Stella held out her hand.

“Let’s have a look.”

Bloom let herself be helped through what felt like thick, warm liquid with a downward current and both of them were standing in the hallway of what looked like a a grand house or some sort of castle. The stone in the wall was a dusty pink colour and the carpet that covered the floor was green.

“Come on, I’ll show you ‘round.”

The layout of the place didn’t seem to make sense to Bloom, but, nonetheless, she followed Stella through several classrooms, each of which had some sort of recording from the teacher about themselves and the subject that they taught.

They used a lot of terms that Bloom didn’t understand and she had to assume that a few things got lost in translation, but she caught a few terms like ‘convergence’ and ‘transformation’ and got to watch a short clip of a fairy changing into her more magical form, which looked reasonably close to what Stella had looked like when they first met,   
only in violet.

Alfea’s library looked incredible. Towers of bookshelves rose from the floor to the ceiling, a fire burned behind a grate and well-stuffed armchairs were dotted around interspersed by ornately carved desks and hard-backed chairs.

They were directed, via floating baby blue arrows, towards an example suite for three people. Stella seemed unfazed by the beautifully decorated and furnished rooms, having been here before and, presumably, because she was a princess.

The tour took them outside so that they could see the sports courts and the gardens. Bloom gave the exterior of the castle a hard stare - it did not look anywhere near big enough to house all the rooms, classrooms and facilities she’d just been shown.

In the middle of the courtyard out front, was a grand fountain with a statue of a beautiful woman made from marble in the centre, water cascading from her hands. 

As they walked around, an older woman came into view, dressed in a pale purple skirt suit and with a bouffant of white hair. There was a smile fixed on her face, as if she had been paused.

“Oh, pants,” Stella sighed. “I forget that most of the programs in this spell are proximity activated.” She pulled Bloom closer, closer than was comfortable really, and the woman began to speak.

“Welcome to Alfea College for Fairies. I am Headmistress Faragonda and I hope you’ve enjoyed your brief tour of our school. Now, if you’d like to get in contact with our admissions office you’ll find the information on the reverse of this leaflet. Also on the other side, you will find a copy of our syllabus, a breakdown of our fees as well as information on financial aid, and several testimonials from our alumni.” Following the end of her speech a song started to play, with which Faragonda joined in with gusto. Stella rolled her eyes and Bloom thought she heard her mutter ‘the school song’ under her breath.

When the woman and her accompaniment finished, Bloom allowed herself to rock back on her feet so that she wasn’t leaning precariously forward anymore.

“I think that’s everything.” Bloom nodded, not sure she had been able to retain much of the information here but also not sure she could bring herself to go around the whole place again. “You want to go back?” Stella pointed up at the sky that was rippling above them.

“Er… how?”

“Simple! Jump.”

Stella jumped vertically upwards, and seemed to get sucked up towards the sky in a similar way that they had been pulled down when they’d entered. Bloom allowed herself a moment of amazement before she shook herself, and desperate not to get left behind in this weird pocket-world, and jumped after her.

Returning to the real world was a shock, and Stella helped her wobble out of the leaflet. It wasn’t as bright as it had been, and all the colours seemed duller. It was weirdly depressing.

Stella looked around.

“Does anything feel… off to you?”

“Kind of? Does that mean anything?”

“Generally, a fairy should trust her instincts but I have no idea why things feel off so there’s not much we can do. Can we watch more of that show where they all hang out at that coffee shop?”

They sat on the sofa and binge watched Friends, although Stella seemed to be more interested in her phone for a good while, before turning her attention to showing Bloom more photos. She guessed that, since she was from another planet or dimension or whatever, Stella probably didn’t have the context for much of what was going on on-screen.  
Bloom took her out to a pizza place for lunch, her meagre bank account taking a hit from eating out twice in a row, and filled her in more about her relationship with Andy and its end, and in return, she was filled in on the recent developments in the princess’ love life.

Both of them weren’t having much luck in that department, although Stella did admit that there was a new boy that she was interested in but didn’t want to say much more because nothing was certain.

“He’s an important person in his home dimension, and he’s sooo hot,” Stella groaned. “Obviously he likes me, but I don’t know how seriously he takes the possibility of us so I’m not going to do anything drastic.”

They discovered that pizza was very similar to something they had from Magix and Stella was incredibly appreciative of the four cheese pie she was tucking into. The waitress gave them a weird look since she still looked like she’d been in a fight with a truck and lost.

After lunch they took Kiko for a walk, in a different park to yesterday and closer to the house. Fortunately Bloom and Stella shared a shoe size, since the only thing the princess had for her feet was a pair of platform heels. 

They almost emptied Bloom’s entire collection of clothes before Stella was satisfied with her borrowed outfit, picking out a hippie-inspired skirt and a green shirt that she tied strategically around her front. Bloom wasn’t sure that her mum would let her out the house like that.

“Put these on,” Stella had said, handing her a pile of clothes. She unfolded the items and blanched. Sure, the jeans were nice and… modest, if a little low-rise (something she’d wear with a nice long sweater) but the top she’d just been given showed off all of her stomach.

She’d been given it as a hand-me-down from her older cousin Vicky, and had only kept it because she liked the turquoise colour.

“Er…”

“Trust me, you can pull it off. Plus its too warm to be all covered up.”

And so, Bloom was walking her dog with what felt like most of her torso bare to the world. Stella gave her stomach an appreciative nod whenever she caught her friend in profile. Despite the summer heat, Bloom found herself wishing she could put a jumper on.

When they got back from the walk Stella said she needed to sort out some things with her father, since she’d been gone over night.

“He’s pretty used to me just going off, but if I leave it any longer, he is going to send people after me.”

It was weird listening to her on the phone, since the spell Stella was using to communicate with her was still working but whoever was on the other end (and took a long time to pass her to her father’s secretary) was speaking that strange language she’d heard from Stella that morning.

Bloom went back to reading while her friend fast-talked her way through several security questions and then the Royal Secretary into not sending bodyguards to her, or finding a way to transport her home.

She had to answer a lot of questions about where she was and what had happened and Bloom was surprised at how easily she lied. Well, she embellished parts of the truth and ignored the whole incident with the ogre.

As far as the Royal Household knew, Stella had taken a stop off at Earth because she was tired and had come across a fairy there who she had made friends with, they were busy with shopping and school applications. Stella would return in the next day or so, provided that the secretary source the out-of-office email address for Griselda Gritworth.

There was a lecture as well, since Stella was using her phone off-dimension, and the bill would be astronomical. She held the phone to her chest to explain what was going on and roll her eyes before putting it back to her ear.

Mike came home at four and Stella gave him the tour the magical leaflet and let him read the extra information on the back of it. He was quiet and shaken as he absorbed everything that was printed there.

“What’s the exchange rate?” he asked when he got to the part about fees. Stella looked at him blankly. “Well, we might have to hope you can get a scholarship, Bloom, because I don’t know if they’ll accept Visa.”

They watched more TV, although Stella was markedly more fidgety that normal. Whatever sinking feeling was affecting Bloom, it was clearly making her friend feel worse. She was fiddling with her ring throughout the show.

It was beautiful, a blue-silver band with an orange stone at the centre, and it caught the light wherever Stella’s fingers moved it around.

Vanessa came home after closing up the shop - she closed early on Sunday’s so she was home for four-thirty.

She was taken into the leaflet as well, staying much longer than either Bloom or Mike had, handling the experience much better than her husband and asking a tonne more questions before Stella could remind her that the admissions officer was going to be able to answer them much better than she could. She relented in her interrogation and was about to ask what everyone felt like for dinner when there was a loud bang at the back door.

“What on earth?…” Mike got up from his seat and made a start before Stella shouted after him.

“No! Don’t open it.” Stella shook her head firmly. “You don’t know what’s out there.”

There was another almighty crash as the wood of the door split down the middle and a giant blue - was it blue? - hand pushed through to pull at one broken half.  
“Let me handle it.” Stella closed her eyes for a moment, crossing her arms in front of her and making what Bloom would have called a peace sign with each hand, and then there was a brilliant light that engulfed her. Bloom’s eyes hurt, looking at her, as fairy wing sprouted from her back and the borrowed clothes she’d been wearing seemed to dissolve in the radiance. They were replaced with the same glittery orange outfit that Bloom had first seen her in.

While Bloom stood, frozen in fear at whatever was trying to break in, she wondered for a second if there was any chance that she could borrow the boots sometime in the future.  
Stella threw her ring up into the air, catching the sceptre as it fell back towards her at the same time as the backdoor gave way to reveal a hulking blue-skinned monster. Long tufts of black hair were sprouting from its ear, nostrils, armpits and its weird nipples. The same thick, wiry hair was flung out behind his head as he lunged for the fairy.  
Hot on the heels of the new blue thing was the ogre. He was small in comparison and thankfully in more clothing than the mostly-nude thing in front of him.

Stella was ready for the attack and sent a bolt of hot light from her sceptre. The blue thing dodged out the way with a kind of agility for his size that shock Bloom. It hit the ogre instead and sent him flying back out the door, although he wasn’t down for long.

“Get your parents and Kiko out! I’ll handle the troll!”

Oh, it was a troll. Bloom was aware she wasn’t reacting very fast at all, and so was thankful when her mum grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the living room window. Mike threw it open and they made their escape into the back garden. 

There was another crash and yelp from the ogre before he followed them once more into the back garden, landing in a heap with his legs by his ears.  
Bloom would have cheered if she could have spared a breath in her panicked state. Her parents started down the road, her father insisting that he’d bring the car around so that they could get out of there

And then she was very glad that she hadn’t celebrated when in the next second Stella came hurtling through the kitchen window, the glass exploding around her before she, too, hit the ground.

Bloom raced to her side, yanking the other girl to her feet before the troll pushed his way through the wrecked doorway after her.

“Don’t worry,” Stella groaned. “I called help a while ago. We’ve just got to stall until backup arrives.”

Blue fists flew at them, and Bloom dived out of the way as Stella shot up into the air on her wings. For a second, Bloom couldn’t work out why she wasn’t getting more distance between her and the eight-foot monstrosity. Then she realised. If Stella was out of reach, Bloom was the next, best target.

Even before the fight, the garden was in need of much repair. The brick walls surround the little yard were crumbling and coming loose from the mortar. In a moment of inspiration, Bloom seized one of the loose bricks, Bloom hurled it as hard as she could at the troll.

It disintegrated on his back without leaving a mark, but it got his attention.

“Why did I do that?” Bloom’s thought came straight out her mouth before she ducked and ran, covering her head and missing the forceful swipe that came her way. If she was caught by the fists of the troll, she’d be coming away from it with at least a concussion. At least.

“We’ve got to bat him around between us!” Stella called, sending another ball of hot light at him, aiming it so that it glanced off his shoulder and cracked the paving stones it landed on. His flesh singeing and smoking where it hit him.

He whirled around and leapt for her, Stella flying just out of his grip.

“Trolls are really dumb, you’ve got to confuse them.”

“And what do I do with ogres?” she yelled back. Bloom heard her let out a string of curses and she let off another light ball at the other creature that was starting to get to his feet.

Bloom flung another brick at each monster and ran around again, barely missing being kicked by the troll. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she wondered why none of her neighbours had come out. They were a mid-terraced house, surely someone had to have heard all the noise they were making.

Two more bolts of light and another brick and Bloom heard Stella yell “Thank God!”

Looking up from her end of the garden, Bloom was just in time to see three boys appear out of thin air on the other side. Just, nothing one moment, a second of what looked like a colourful shimmer, and then three young men were there.

One was standing proudly at the front, an oversized green sword out in front of him and his brown hair flicked out of his eyes. On his left side was a boy with long blonde hair wielding a matching blue sword and shield. His expression was of intent concentration, but he was also holding back a smile, Bloom instantly felt her face get hot and hoped she wasn’t blushing.

The last boy had a scowl etched on his face and hair so sharply purple and swept back that it was hard to look anywhere else. By the looks of things, he’d even dyed his eyebrows to match. This one moved first, swinging his weird chain-and-sickle weapon.

The chain wrapped around the troll’s neck, the heavy ball at the end slamming into its windpipe. His friend with the green sword let out a shout of success.

“Now bring him in, Riven!”

The troll thrashed its arms and Bloom thought for a second that they were going to take it down, but the purple-haired Riven seemed to have other ideas.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Prince,” he snapped. Oh, that must mean the guy giving orders was Stella’s crush. Thank god it wasn’t Blondie.

“Don’t talk to Prince Sky like that,” Blondie grumbled. “Also, Riven…”

The troll had managed to seize onto the chain around his neck and in the next moment, pulled.

Riven went flying, letting go of his sickle and rolling into a controlled fall not too far from Bloom. She stared at his angular face. He was quite pretty despite the scowl, and- were his eyelashes purple too? Was his hair colour natural?

“What are you staring at?” he growled. “Brandon! Sky! Help me out!”

Brandon (Blondie) was engaging the ogre now, making sure that the yellow giant couldn’t help his bigger, bluer friend, and so just rolled his eyes at his loud teammate. Sky, however, charged straight for the troll, ducking under it’s fists and pulling his sword across it’s stomach.

The skin there split but no blood was drawn. There was a beat before Sky leapt out of the way of the retaliatory strike, and retreated to where Pointy was.

“I say we keep him distracted, Brandon,” he said. “And Riven! Takes his legs out!”

“I’ll take the ogre off you,” Stella called out, landing next to Bloom. “Help me if you can.”

Bloom was more than happy to no longer have to hold the attention of the troll, although the ogre wasn’t that great of a trade. 

“Put your hands like this,” Stella demonstrated putting her wrists together and splayed her palms out. “And focus on what you felt when he hurt Kiko. Then push that feeling towards him!”

The creature let out a roar as it changed its target from Brandon to them, its bellowing cut short by its cry of pain as it was hit by the combined force of the two blasts from the girls.

“Holy crap!” she yelled. She was able to do magic! Real magic! "I really am a fairy!"

"Of course you are, I'm never wrong," Stella laughed.

“Watch where you’re aiming that!” Riven snarled, mid-swing. “Just let us handle it, fairies.”

Stella mocked his scowl back at him, only turning back around when she felt Bloom pulling on her arm. The ogre clapped his hands, much like when he had escaped the first time, and he shimmered into the air. That just left the troll.

They watched as giant blue fists almost pulverised Riven as he got close to its feet. He was able to move out of the way, barely, but not to destabilise it as he’d been instructed.

“Should… should we help?” Bloom asked.

“Oh, I think Riven can handle it.”

Brandon was pushed back from the force of a punch on his blue shield. As she took a moment to admire how his back muscles moved under the tight blue and white… armour? uniform? she realised a loud humming noise was growing rapidly closer.

“Oh thank god!” Sky yelled over the whirring. “Timmy’s here!”

Bloom didn’t have time to ask who Timmy was, before a disk-shaped aircraft came cruising low over the houses, a beam of blue-white light pouring down from it’s underside. The troll, dazed from the sudden appearance of a bright light at night, was left open for the three boys to force him into it.

“Handcuff him!” A pair of weirdly linked metal rings were indelicately thrust over its hands as its body went stiff and it was pulled up and into the bottom of the ship. 

“What the…”

“That was Timmy, and these -mostly- fine gentlemen are Prince Sky,” Stella grinned flirtatiously at him, which he somehow seemed to miss. “His bodyguard Brandon…”

“Hey,” Brandon cut in, giving a slight wave, his eyes closing momentarily as he smiled and making Bloom’s heart beat faster.

“And this one’s Riven.” Riven just exhaled loudly, arms folded across his chest. He looked every inch the picture of teenage angst. 

“We should really get back to school,” he snapped. “Before they realise us and one of the ships is missing. Your guards will flip out if you’re not in dorms by nine, Prince.”

Sky rolled his eyes and waved to Stella as he followed his teammate towards the still shining beam of light. Brandon paused as he walked past, opening his mouth like he was going to say something before Riven yelled something and Stella grinned.

“She’ll be joining us in Magix for the start of the year, enjoy your preseason! We’ll see you at the dance!” She shouted after them as the ship took off.

“Hey, Stella?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are my parents and why does the rest of the street not know what happened?”

“At the end of the road in their car, staring in disbelief, and because I’m pretty sure each magical being that turned up to this fight cast a muffling spell. With the exception of you, of course.”

Stella offered to help with the clean up by using magic, but Mike said that he’d seen enough used already. It was mostly just cleaning up the smashed crockery and broken furniture and Vanessa spent the next morning on the phone with someone who could fix the door.

Mike went back on his no-magic decision by the next evening after he found their anniversary vase smashed behind the cabinet. 

It took another day after that for two men dressed in what looked like historically inaccurate medieval soldiers’ uniform in an orange and green colour palette to arrive. They accepted Vanessa’s invitation to come in but declined to sit or have a drink, so instead they stood in the corner completely silently while Stella gathered her stuff and made sure that her number was in Bloom’s phone.

“I really hope that this works, because we need to keep in touch. Let me know how the admissions go!”


	4. The Weirdest Town Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in Episode 2 now, woo! And spoiler alert, we're going to be here for a while.  
> Also, proof-reading husband burst out laughing several times during this one only to tell me it was because of my comma use. So that's a thing.

The beach had lost its novelty several years ago, but it was still nice to dip her feet in the ocean off the pier.

Bloom was still mostly sleep-walking through her days ever since she’d had a meeting with Mrs Wilmendria. The woman had an enchanted pen taking notes for her and had offered her a selection of drinks, none of which she was familiar with and all were some unnatural colour.

They had gone through the application process together, during which time she had been informed that Stella had both recommended her (since a recommendation was necessary) and had provided a reference from the Royal Household of Solaria.

“I’m rather surprised that Miss Stella has taken up your cause,” Wilmendria had mused. “Although in your case she is quite right, you do fit our criteria. Please sign here to say that you understand and agree to our confidentiality policy.”

There had been a lot of paperwork. They’d had to apply directly to the Magix high court to get her multiple dimension approved ID before anything else, and then there had been a mountain on stuff for her parents to sign as well as something to be worked out so that she could be withdrawn from her normal high school.

After that was the stack of forms for several different grant so she could pay for her necessities while here, and the scholarship papers that needed to be signed, filed, approved and then returned to her so that she could pay the fees should she be accepted.

“One last thing,” Wilmendria had added. “Stella mentioned you had a familiar?”

“A… a familiar?”

“Yes, a familiar is an animal companion that…”

“Kiko!” Bloom went red when she realised that she had cut the woman off. “Sorry. Kiko is my dog, my… familiar, yeah.”

“Well, he? She? He? He. He will have to be in quarantine for a some time when you come here but after that, provided you fill out the correct paperwork, he will be free to accompany you wherever you go.” 

She had texted Stella to ask about Kiko as her familiar. Stella had replied saying that, she had no idea if her dog was a familiar but there was no real test for it and she thought Bloom would want her dog. There wasn’t any fault in her logic, Bloom needed Kiko with her.

She’d written her own name so many times that it no longer looked right to her anymore. But they’d cleared all of the massive stacks of paper on the desk and everything was just in the works now. In general, her slot was spoken about like a given thing but that didn’t stop Bloom from worrying that for some reason, any reason, she would be rejected.

There had been a lot of questions that she didn’t know the answer to. What was the Magical Pressure of Earth? Did she have an elemental or constructed magic type? She guessed that her primary fairy form would be similar to Stella’s glittery orange get-up, but wasn’t one hundred percent, and no, she hadn’t manifested it yet.

That had all been about a week ago now. And now was supposed to be a holiday, a time to relax with her family and take it easy.

Bloom was nowhere close to relaxed and had left her parents asleep in their chalet to sit on the pier and stare glumly off into the waves. Vacationing was not working for her.

Shuffling her bottom on the hard surface of the pier, she poked the back of her forearm to check that she was’t burning. She was a ginger, after all. 

Bloom moved her feet in the water and made a mental plan to suggest that they go around the coast a bit to where they could snorkel better before her dad had the time to insist that they built another sand castle. He loved sand castles and apparently she used to too.

She could sneak back into the holiday hut, if she was quick, to grab her purse to buy ice cream for breakfast before her mum was awake and able to tell her not to.

“Morning!” A shadow fell across her.

“Stella, you scared me!”

“And here I thought you’d be more excited to see me after all this time.” Stella flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder in mock indignation as she went to sit next to her friend. “Especially since I have excellent news.”

As if from thin air, she produced an envelope that had at one time been sealed with a fancy stamp in wax. It wasn’t like Stella’s beach outfit had many pockets. Bloom hoped it was magic and not that it had been stored in her bikini strings.

“Ha, I couldn’t resist so I did open it first.”

Bloom snatched it out of her hand and tore the letter out. Her eyes scanned over the neatly typed letter, addressed to her using her full name.

“I got in?!”

“And you got a full scholarship, and you got pretty much every grant available so everything is basically paid for.”

“Wow…” Bloom held the letter close to her chest.

“And!” It appeared that there was more. “When I picked the letter up from the office, god I had to navigate Griselda too, they suggested that we ease your transition to the magical world by having you come to Magix early and have a bit of a holiday there. You get to meet your Magix guardian too.”  
Bloom didn’t know who her guardian was going to be yet, just that she was going to have one. Mrs Wilmendria had assured her that they took pastoral care very seriously at Alfea.

“Every fairy who is not from Magix itself is assigned an on-world guardian either from the teaching staff or from the tutors, you’ll share them with a few other students… it’s like a little inter-dimensional family.” 

Bloom had smiled and nodded in an effort to keep the process moving, but was now seriously considering what it would be like to be plunged into a whole new world under the supervision of an unknown adult.

“Will you be there too?”

“Maybe for some of it, but that would mean that I need to leave now pretty promptly.”

“Don’t want to go have to go missing for a third time?”

“Ha!” Stella threw back her head dramatically. “I’m actually on a sanctioned visit today and I’m sure that my parents will be thrilled that I want to go to school early.”

“‘Sanctioned visit’?”

“You see those muscle heads over there?” Stella waved dramatically to a pair of blonde men in shorts and Hawaiian shirts that were meandering down the beach a convenient distance away. Bloom didn’t think that they were particularly bulky, just that their ridiculous shirts were too tight over their shoulders. “Well they’re my escorts for now. I won’t need them at Alfea though.”

“Um, Stella?”

“Yeah?”

“How do I get to Magix? Last time, the Admissions’ Officer just sort of showed up and then we were in her office. I didn’t even question it.”

“You know what? I’ll take you. Inter-dimensional travel can be stressful at the best of times so I may as well help out. I wonder if they’ll give me extra-credit…”

“Okay, but how?”

“Simple!” Stella grinned and pointed at her ring. “This sweet little piece of jewellery is one of the most powerful artefacts in the universe.”

“And they let you wear it on your finger?”

“Yeah! I know how to use it, it’s safer than it just lying around. Really, I’m not even supposed to take it off unless I’m using it and then I’m still holding it.” Bloom looked a bit embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, it just… surprised me.”

“Oh Bloom,” Stella put an arm around her. “I’m not mad or anything, just very used to having to justify it. Oh, and another thing! Someone asked me if they could have your number.”

“Please be Brandon.”

She could picture his smiling face and his long blonde hair. And the muscles that just rippled as he fought. Stella squealed.

“I knew you liked him!”

“It’s a bit too soon to know…”

“Yeah, yeah, but soon it won’t be too soon. I didn’t want to give it to him until I’d checked with you, just in case I was wrong.”

“Oh, yeah, please do give it to him. I’d like to talk to him more. Although, since you have my number I’m surprised you didn’t tell me you were coming?”

“It wasn’t planned too far in advance.” Stella waved her off. “But if you want me to be available for some pre-term Magix fun then I really need to get going.”  
Bloom let herself be pulled into a hug.

“I’ll see you soon. I promise, and we’ll keep texting.”

Stella got up, brushing herself down.

“I’ll see you soon,” Bloom echoed.

She stayed with her feet in the water for a few more minutes before she got up to walk back to the chalet. Mike opened the door and leant out as she approached.

“Did I just see Stella a little while ago? And your mum wants to know which cereal you want for breakfast today?” Crap, she’d left it too late for ice cream.  
Vanessa looked unhappy at the prospect of her daughter going to school early, but didn’t say anything against the idea. Her dad, however, seemed thrilled at the prospect.

“I would have loved that when I was your age, a chance to go to school in a new country and the opportunity to have holiday there first? Can you imagine Vanessa?!”

“Yes, Mike,” she replied. “You’ll be safe and sensible, won’t you Bloom?”

“Of course Mum.”

“And you’ll let me know who your.. Magix guardian is?”

Bloom continued to sleepwalk through the holiday, although with a more hopeful air. The idea of Alfea was so exciting and terrifying at the same time that she didn’t know whether the feeling in her stomach was butterflies or the urge to vomit in fear. Her mother noticed and did what she always did when Bloom was nervous: make a lot of lists. Anxiety, Vanessa thought, came from feeling unprepared and so having a comprehensive account of all the things that needed to be done was sure to help. And it did, sort of.

Bloom let her mum fuss and write list after list since she could see that rapid sequence of events that summer had unnerved Vanessa as well. She was panicking slightly at the prospect of her little girl going away to boarding school and so, by the time she was packed and waiting for Stella at the house, Bloom had made innumerable promises to her mother. From informing her of her grades to remembering to always brush her teeth.

Bloom had decided to wear the outfit that Stella had picked out for her the day they went out with Kiko, the day before the ogre and troll had attacked. She’d had to wash the jeans pretty thoroughly, but it had all made it out of the fight unscathed somehow but for a small tear at the left hem that was barely noticeable.

Vanessa had raised her eyebrows at the midriff-baring ensemble but didn’t say anything other than suggesting that Bloom might want a jacket in case Magix was cold. 

Alfea had provided her with a list of things to bring with her, although most would have to be bought during her short holiday on her shiny new, pink debit card. She’d received it in the post (somehow) along with the terms of her grants and some suggested shops to pick out her books and equipment. Mike had spent at least a quarter of an hour staring at the post mark trying to work out where it had come from.

Her suitcases were filed with her clothes and toiletries as well as some books and stationary. Her mum had given her a scrapbook too so that she could detail how things went at Alfea. Her acceptance letter and the beautiful fairy-stamped envelope were already stuck in, and Bloom wondered if there was a Magix equivalent of a photo booth or polaroid camera so she could take one of her and Stella to put in too.

If Stella ever turned up, of course. She was almost forty-five minutes late and it was worrying Bloom that she was still waiting. That little voice in the back of her head was telling her that this had all been a joke to the Princess and that this was an elaborate prank, probably involving Mitzy somehow.

Vanessa had stayed home to see her off and was making lunch while they waited, Mike watching and complaining about the impending salad. She could hear him asking what was wrong with sandwiches - he was definitely angling for some bacon or sausage - and her mother replying that it was just the weather for salads which Bloom recognised as her ex use for trying to feed him more green and leafy vegetables.

The idea of leaving them suddenly felt intolerable and waves of homesickness crashed over her. She was starting to think that maybe she wouldn’t be so upset if Stella never turned up when the doorbell rang. Kiko gave his customary one bark to let them know he’d heard it and then went back to lying on his back and begging for scratches from Mike. He would be picked up by a Magix official that evening and put into quarantine for a few days until he was cleared.

Bloom shot up from the sofa and went to open the door.

It took a while for Bloom to realise that the woman in dark glasses and a black beanie on the doorstep was Stella. She was in some kind of athleisure-wear that showed off her navel and was drinking a lilac liquid out of a clear takeaway cup.

“Hey,” she said shakily.

“Are you alright?” Bloom stepped to one side so that she could come in.

“Yeah, sorry I’m late. Some of my friends from home threw me a going away party last night and it ran on quite late so I overslept. Plus there is a slight time difference.” She stretched half-heartedly and took her glasses off. Bloom decided she wasn’t going to touch what happened at the party.

“Do you want to have some salad before we go?”

Stella stayed for some lunch and managed to pull off not looking too hungover brilliantly given how croaky she’d been outside. She was a little more hesitant to eat than she had been before but no one else seemed to notice.

Stella went through all the things that they could do in the next three days before term started: a long list of all Magix’s attractions which seemed to involve a lot of coffee shops, and bistros, and some underage clubs that closed at midnight. Then there were the shops that Stella was very enthusiastic about, even if none of the family knew the designers that she was so enamoured with.

When they had finished eating, Bloom said goodbye to her parents and went to stand with Stella next to her two suitcases.

“Are these all your bags?”

“Yeah, and this,” Bloom held up her satchel.

“Wow, you pack light!” Stella said, still looking around as if convinced that there were other bags hiding somewhere. “Well, say goodbye and we’ll head off.”

“Oh, er, okay.” Bloom went to hug her mum and dad. Vanessa stroked her hair and held onto her for a few seconds.

“Make sure you keep in touch,” Mike reminded her for the umpteenth time.

“Bye,” she said, waving awkwardly, well aware that she was still standing in the middle of her living room. Stella grinned at her, putting her sunglasses back on and taking her ring off. Throwing it up in the air, it hit a beam of sunlight coming through the blinds and expanded into the sceptre that Bloom had first seen her with.

She saw her parents’ eyes widen as they saw it’s transformation for the first time just before she heard Stella declare:

“To Magix we go!”

Her cry was immediately followed by a shock of bright light that blinded Bloom, making her recoil and screw her eyes up. She blinked furiously once it went out, her vision still obscured by the after-image, but she was able to take in that they weren’t in her parents’ house anymore.

“Oh, whoops,” Stella laughed. “Probably should have warned you that it was going to be bright.”

“It’s okay,” Bloom replied, starting to look around at her surroundings properly.  
Magix, which is where she assumed they were, didn’t look all that different from Earth with the exception of the vibrant colours that leapt out at her from every building. They looked like they were at a bus terminal, apart from the fact it was tucked away off the road.

The vehicles that whizzed past them were hovering two feet off the ground, but other than that they looked almost exactly like cars. There was even a shuttle bus that went by filled with people and piloted by a person.

The people walking around were dressed in extravagant outfits with unusually coloured hair that Bloom hoped was mostly natural - she’d hate for Riven to actually be special somehow since she begrudged him his ego though she’d never admit it - but all ultimately looked human, or human enough.

“So,” Stella said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “What do you want to do first?”

Bloom made the choice to check into their rooms at Alfea first, since they were each lugging a suitcase around with them, but it took them twice as long as it should have to reach the shuttle station to the school because Bloom had to keep stopping to gawk.

She just couldn’t help herself. There were street performers in whom Stella didn’t seem remotely interested, but they were using magic in their routines that made Bloom’s jaw drop. Then there were the shops that displayed a variety of gorgeous gowns and stylish daywear, which lead Bloom to be given an impassioned lecture about the different styles and designers behind them. On one of the boutiques there was even a sign that boasted a bespoke design and seamstress service, it had a price after it that reminded her that she still had no idea what a credit was worth - could she buy a bunch of bananas with it, or was it like Indian Rupees where a single one had next to no buying power.

She opened her mouth to ask and then closed it again. Maybe the princess with her face literally pressed against the glass of a jewellery store wasn’t the best person to ask regarding the value of money.

In the very centre of the main square was a temple dedicated to some deity that she didn’t quite catch the name of, built from beautiful carven amber blocks and with a highly decorated palisade. The statues and friezes were oddly comforting, they were familiar after all, as they had been chiseled in almost exactly the same style of the Greek Acropolis that she’d had to study in Art. 

Eventually they were able to board a shuttle, Bloom fumbling with her debit card to pay on the intangible-looking screen. The driver rolled his eyes at how long it took for her to angle it right, but passed her her ticket with a smile. The experience did mean that she knew a one-way ticket from Magix Central to Alfea College was two credits and fifty cents. Suddenly that bespoke wardrobe service seemed much more like a fantasy than a way to spend a day.

“Don’t worry,” Stella said as they stacked the suitcases on the luggage rack, nodding at the ticket and bank card still clutched in Bloom’s hand. “It gets easier with practice and once you get your student ID you can just swipe it.” Bloom nodded, Stella’s method of boarding had been much easier.

She spent most of the ten minute ride staring out of the window, watching the new dimension fly past. It was only when Stella began humming tunelessly that she realised that she wasn’t the only one who was anxious.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, watching as Stella’s leg bounced up and down restlessly.

“Okay, so you know how I have to repeat a year?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s not because my grades were abysmal, well, not just because of that, but I may have been expelled…” Bloom widened her eyes.

“Why? And are you allowed back?”

“Yeah, and see, I might have blown up a Potions Lab. Totally an accident,” she held up her hands in front of her. “I was just doing some extra-curricula experiments, but Griselda didn’t see the academics of it. I’ve been readmitted after I appealed, but they said I was such a bad student that I needed to be held back.” Stella looked dejectedly at the floor.

“So you don’t really want to go back?” Bloom reached out to hold her hand and the princess squeezed onto it hard.

“No. I don’t want to see the teachers or my old classmates again, there’s not much mingling between the years since the timetabling is so rigid so I won’t see my friends from last year at all.”

“It’ll be okay, you have me.”

Stella laughed and squeezed her hand again, resting her head on Bloom’s shoulder for a moment.

“Yeah, I have you. at least no one will have forgotten about me, right?” she laughed, flipping her hair again. “I’m infamous.” They both giggled as the bus pulled up to the stop outside of a huge, pink palace.

They retrieved the bags and stepped off the shuttle with several of the other passengers and headed towards the winged gates that broke up the low stone wall, the ‘feathers’ of each wing folding away on their approaches so that they could enter. Bloom was struck by the perfection of the grounds, the fountain more beautiful in natural light than it had been in the weird replica of the interactive leaflet.

The only thing that spoilt the fantastic view was the tall, thin woman with dark hair and a sour expression on her face. She was wearing a sort of severely modest magnolia frock and green over-dress and looked down her nose and through very pointy triangular glasses at the pair of them, Stella trying to hide behind Bloom, as they approached.

“Griselda!” Stella hissed from over her shoulder.

“Ah Miss Stella,” she said. Even her voice was harsh. “We were expecting you much earlier, your bags have been waiting at the Porters’ Lodge for several hours now. And who have you got with you?”

“I’m Bloom.” She was impressed that she only wobbled a little bit over her own name.

“Ah, Miss Bloom, new to our school and our way of life.” It wasn’t clear if this was Griselda disparaging her origins or if this was her trying to be welcoming. “I hope you aren’t being a poor influence on her, Miss Stella.” Thin eyebrows shot up the pale forehead.

“Of course not, Griselda,” she smiled, stepping out from Bloom’s shadow. “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was being a pro-bono taxi.” Griselda rolled her eyes and spread out her palm to produce a clipboard. She offered it out to both girls with a degree of disdain.

“Press your finger to your name and you will start your semester now.” Stella took the opportunity to press her middle finger into the box next to a very long name that did include ‘Stella’ but only in the middle somewhere, before walking very quickly towards the sheltered walkway under the main building. “And make sure to behave yourself! I expect you to stay away from the Potions Laboratory unless instructed in there by a member of staff.” She called after the princess before turning to hold the other girl in her gaze.

“Er, Bloom?”

“I need all your titles please.” All titles? Sure, Stella was a princess and so would have at least one. How many other members of royalty went to this school? Surely there had to be other scholarship students who weren’t connected to a monarchy.

“…Miss?”

“I see.” Griselda had to summon a completely different clipboard for her. “Where are you? I don’t see your name here alphabetically…” Bloom’s heart sank. There had been a mistake and she hadn’t really been enrolled and she was going to be kicked out immediately. She’d have to find a way to try and go back to her old high school on Earth. “Oh, yes, you were a late registration. There you are Miss Bloom, you were just at the bottom. If you’d like to take your finger here… and then run after Miss Stella, I believe she’s waiting for you behind that column.”

Her heart was thumping so hard and heavily in her chest as she walked away that it felt like she was being pulled towards the ground with each beat, although she didn’t dare slouch in view of Griselda. Stella was waiting in the walkway that went around the outside of the castle and towards the main doors.

“How did you find your first encounter with Griselda?” she asked, waggling all her fingers at her when she said the teacher’s name.

“What is her role here?” Bloom whispered, desperately hoping that the woman couldn’t hear her.

“Oh, she’s the Deputy Headmistress and Head of Discipline.”

“Oh, so you know her quite well then.”

“Don’t say it like that!”

The porters were able to give them their suite name (‘Wings’ and Stella squealed when it was confirmed that they were indeed in the same dorm) and handed over their keys to the suite and their bedrooms. They had stored eight orange and blue suitcases for Stella and confirmed that they would start bringing them up now. 

“Any hints about our suite-mates?” the princess asked, batting her eyelashes at an extremely unaffected porter as he hauled her first suitcase up a flight of stairs, Bloom’s seemed much lighter in his other hand.

“Well, I know that you’re all early arrivals but you are the first in.”

“Are they all new to this whole thing?” Bloom asked, keeping the man’s face in the corner of her eye.

“Probably not,” Stella shook her head. “There are a couple of reasons to come early, they’ll either be overachievers here for the events committee or athletics team or something, or they have problems at home. You’re a bit of a special case.”

“And why are you here?” She stuck out her tongue at Stella.

“Because I had problems in a different dimension,” she said and messed up Bloom’s hair.

The rooms they were assigned to were right on the top floor and were a collection of three rooms and a common room area that opened onto a balcony. It was nicer than the nicest hotel room that Bloom had ever seen. Stella walked straight her room (the only single), seemingly without noticing how beautiful the suite was, and instructed the porter to put the suitcase ‘there’ with a vague hand wave.

Bloom unlocked the door to her room and gasped. Someone had made a large blue, wooden bookcase in the shape of her name above her bed and they had left a few magazines out on the bedside table. At one end was a large panelled window that stretched out across the whole wall, filling the room with bright, natural light.

“Where do you want it?” the porter asked, gesturing with the suitcase.

“Oh, er, wherever.”

Her bed frame had a heart motif at each end and her desk set and armchair had been made to match. On the other side of the room was her roommates furniture, and, while there wasn’t anything with her name on it, Bloom was almost jealous. Almost.

The other half of the room had a floral theme with the seat of the armchair appearing from a flower-like structure and the bed canopy draped over the head that was decorated with soft lace and (fake?) vines.

“Oh,” the porter stopped in his retreat and put his head back round the door. “Ms Faragonda would like to see you in her office at your next convenience.”

“Ms Faragonda?”

“Yes.”

“The Headmistress?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

The room suddenly felt colder as he exited and all desire to unpack left her. What did the headmistress want to talk to her about? They’d already organised all her money and scholarships, Griselda had checked her off so she was enrolled now, the only thing she had to do was check in with her Magix guardian. Maybe she was supposed to have done that first?

As much as she wanted to kick back and relax for a bit, and she could see Stella doing just that through the open doors, there wouldn’t be any rest until she got this interview with Faragonda over and done with.

“Stella?”

“Yeah?” It sounded like she was face down in her pillows, maybe she was trying to sleep off the rest of the party.

“I’m going to see Ms Faragonda now. Do you know where her office is?”

“Third floor, right in the middle of the landing. You want me to come with?”

“N-no, I’ll be alright.” Stella sounded like she needed a nap, and maybe a gallon of water. Bloom decided she’d find some and bring it to her if things didn’t go to hell first.

It was quite easy to find the third floor, and the office had a door so elaborate that it let her know exactly who was behind it. It had the same feathered-wing pattern that made up the front gate and it was much taller than any other on the floor.

Hesitantly, she knocked on the door and waited.

Almost immediately, the door swung open at an inviting speed to reveal an older woman sat at an ornate desk across the room. It seemed the door had opened on its own as there was no one else in the room. The woman’s bouffant was in silhouette against a wall of frosted glass.

“Bloom,” Faragonda’s voice was warm and Bloom found herself stepping into the room in reflex. The door closed promptly behind her once she was out of the way. “How are you?”

“I’m alright.” She sounded so small, she thought, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to run away or try to hug the woman.

“I’m glad to hear it, I know this must be a lot of information for you. I just wanted to run through a few things with you, one of which is that, since your circumstance is so extremely unusual, I’ll be your guardian while you are at Alfea and on Magix.”

“Oh.” Well that would explain why she had wanted to see her so quickly. Bloom’s knees weakened as she realised that she wasn’t actually in trouble.

“I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.”

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t worry, Bloom. I’m very impressed with how you are coping so far, I want to make sure you continue adjusting so well! And the effect you’ve had on Miss Stella!”

“I’ve had an effect on Stella?” she said blankly. Faragonda laughed out loud, it was musical and full of happiness.

“My, my, yes. I never thought the day would come when that girl would arrive to school on time, let alone early. I hope you continue to be a good influence on her. Now, I want to ensure that Alfea feels like a second home to you so if you need anything I want you to come to me. We’ll have weekly updates of course, but my door is always open for you.”

“Thank you.” Bloom was taken aback. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had a non-schoolwork related conversation with a teacher since Miss Green when she was seven.

“I’m hoping you’ll take this time to get used to this dimension and the school. Please feel free to use any of the facilities here and go, do some sight seeing. I’m sure Miss Stella would love to take you around the city. Although there is an addendum.” Her face darkened.

“Yes?”

“Magix is a place with low magical pressure… it makes it easier to perform magic,” she explained when she saw Bloom’s confused face. “So it’s home to several schools, some similar to Alfea. One of those is Cloud Tower, a school for witches, and in recent years there has been a growing animosity between our students and theirs. It is imperative that you not get involved with any of the witches, for your own safety. The witches code’ is very different than that of the fairies.”

Bloom opened her mouth and tried to find a way to express her surprise, but failed. It didn’t feel right to be told to avoid a whole school, since up until now she had been under the impression that Alfea was inclusive and she was starting to worry that she’d been wrong. However, she was pretty sure that Faragonda knew more about what was going on that she did so she was planning on accepting her advice.

“I don’t know if you saw,” the Headmistress continued, her sweet smile still on her face. “But I left you some dimensional magazines that showcase some of the things to do here as well as some culturally relevant articles and novels. Just in case you wanted to know more.”

“I saw those on my bedside table, I’ll read those while Stella’s asleep.”

“Oh, she’s napping, is she?”

“Er, yeah…”

“I imagine she had quite the party last night. I’m rather surprised she was with it enough to make it across worlds so quickly.” Faragonda chuckled at her own joke. “Oh don’t look so shocked! Most teachers are at least a little aware of what their students get up to. Stella’s partying is well-documented in the Solarian press.”

“She said she was a princess.”

“She is,” the woman smiled. “Although that Royal Household is more of a figurehead now rather than a political force. I hope you will be understanding of her - it has not been easy for her to have been in the public eye for as long as she can remember.”

Bloom nodded, deciding that maybe it was for the best that she was a normal girl and not a fairy princess.

“I think we’re friends now.”

“Well, I can see that her fashion sense has rubbed off on you. No, that’s not a criticism,” she added quickly as Bloom wrapped her arms around her bare stomach. 

“Please, I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. You look so lovely, and so much like a fairy of Alfea, if I was your age again that’s what I’d be wearing.”

On that note, Bloom thanked her for the thoughtfulness that went into creating her half of her room, which was waved off as no problem, and made her exit back into the pink, green and purple hallway. Stella was going to be so pleased that she wanted to go shopping for clothes.So far, she had two very important pieces of information: her new friend might need her support as much as Bloom needed Stella’s, and to stay away from the witches of Cloud Tower. 

But first, a jug of water.


	5. The Weirdest Dive Bar Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still technically Thursday (at least where I am)!  
> Proofing this took longer than expected so... sorry about that. Also still hammering out Chapter 7, hoping I can wrap up episode 3 in that but we're already at 6000 words and still not done.

She was ten pages deep in ‘Magix Today’ magazine when she heard the front door of the suit open. Bloom glimpsed Stella’s feet move off her bed from across the hall and she hurried to get up too.

The porter was back with more suitcases and a girl whose head was almost entirely obscured by a large plant with heart-shaped leaves and… was that a face in the flower?!

“Hi,” the new girl was softly spoken as she poked her head around her creepily human flower. “I’m Flora. I think we’re sharing a room.”

“Oh, er, I’m Bloom.” She moved out of the doorway so that Flora could come in and instruct the porter where to put her bags. Bloom decided that her roommate looked quite a lot like a ‘60s hippie version of Jennifer Lopez, only with bigger earrings. She put her plant down on her desk, its face towards the window.

“It’s nice to meet you, Bloom. I’m here for the Events Committee, are you on that too?”

“Oh, er, no…”

“She’s from Earth so she’s here to get used to Magix and magic.” Stella leant against the doorway, smiling and rolling her ring around her finger. “I’m Stella.”

“Hi Stella!” Flora’s smile lit up her face in a way that made Bloom jealous. “Nice to meet you too. Why are you here early?”

“I’m looking after Bloom. So basically, shopping and eating.”

“Oh, well I like those things too. Maybe I could join you for some of that.”

“Yeah, that might be nice.” Stella’s expression said the exact opposite to her words, so Bloom just smiled and asked if the new girl had any recommendations for places to eat here.

“Oh, well,” Flora paused to think for a moment. “I’ve only been here a couple of times before for the interview, but my mum took me to a great little bistro down on Marsden Street, really great soups.”

“Soups… soups…” Both Bloom and Stella jumped as they turned to stare at the flower that repeated the last word a few times. It smiled proudly at Flora and the girl flushed a little and went to stand in front of it, blocking it’s face from view.

“Oh, sorry, that’s just my Magical Botany project. Occasionally he repeats words he hears…”

“That’s not creepy at all,” Stella muttered. “Let me guess, you’re from Linphea?”

“Yes, of course. If he’s too awful for you to have in the room I can put him in the green house…” Flora trailed off, her eyes flicking over to its weird face that smiled back at her. 

Stella took a breath and stepped back, looking at her friend for her response.

“No, it’s… it’s probably okay. Does he speak much at night?”

Bloom was prevented from hearing the answer by the arrival of the porter again, with another of Flora’s bags and a hard, metallic, purple suitcase that was sealed with by a substantial, ethereally glowing, digital lock.

Stella moved so that the porter could get in, and all three girls looked past him. The newest arrival, and owner of the giant purple suitcase was a tall, slender girl with a shock of lilac hair in a bold pixie cut. Bloom was envious of the cheekbones that let her pull it off.

“Hello,” she said coolly, and then she addressed the porter. “My room is that one over there. My roommate hasn’t arrived yet it would seem. My name is Tecna and I’m here for the Computer Club meet.”

“I’m Stella, Princess of Solaria, this is Flora, she’s on the Events Committee and this,” she pulled Bloom towards her with one arm into a sloppy hug. “Is Bloom. She’s from Earth and she’s new to all this. So we’re exploring Magix together.”

“Nice to meet all of you. Are you the Stella that blew up the Potions Lab last year?” Tecna cocked her head to one side in curiosity rather than judgement. Stella let go of her friend to flip her hair and cross her arms.

“Well I was trying to create a new shade of pink, if you must know. I got very close, actually, and when I eventually succeed I will make it the new official colour of Solaria.” Bloom noticed that she was struggling to keep a straight face towards the end of her speech. Tecna raised one eyebrow.

“I see. I do hope we aren’t lab partners… I much prefer purples.”

Bloom got a look in the third room as they helped Tecna unpack all her tech. Carefully. She had a whole range of different computers and computer parts as well as a few game systems and tools. It seemed that the decorators had hit the nail on the head when they’d put up a feature wall patterned like a motherboard behind her bed frame.

Her half of the room even had twice the number of plug sockets than everyone else so that she could keep most of her tech running. It was when Tecna bent down to plug some cables together, that Bloom realised just how invested she was. On the back of her head was a thick metal plate embedded into her skull with a pair of green lights blinking through her hair.

Stella saw Bloom staring and smiled at her.

“So, Tecna,” she said. “You’re from Zenith, right?”

“Yes. My whole family is.”

“What kind of cybernetics do you have?” Stella winked at Bloom as if to say ‘you’re welcome’.

“Oh, just the basics… universal ports, extra RAM, extra memory, stuff like that. I have been thinking about optical implants but I rather like my natural eye colour and there would be some institutions and competitions that would exclude me for it.” Tecna explained before standing up straight and turning to look intensely at Bloom. “How are your adaptors?”

“My what?”

“Your adaptors. For your Earth plugs to Magix power sockets.”

“Oh!” Bloom exclaimed as she realised that she hadn’t thought about that. Surely there was some kind of magic for that, right? “No, I haven’t, and I don’t think they match.” She looked at the square of four holes in each socket and thought of the three horizontal pins on all of her electricals.

“If you give them to me then I’ll sort them out. I’ve been wanting a project I can’t just look up and I don’t have any data on Earth technologies. Tell me, what voltage is your mains electricity and the average frequency you use?”

“I don’t know?…”

“Great! I’ll work it out then.”

Bloom handed over everything she had brought with her that had a plug, which ended up being her laptop (which Tecna snorted at) and it’s charger, her phone charger, her hairdryer and her straighteners. Tecna seemed disappointed that she didn’t have more things for her to play around with but she sat at her desk with them anyway as the purple trunks that contained her clothes were piled around her. 

“I’m going to need my small screwdrivers,” she muttered gleefully.

Bloom left the new girl with her project, retreating back out of the room and going to sit with Stella and Flora in the common room. The princess seemed to have been won over by Flora since they were looking up which boutiques to visit between dinner at a place that did something equivalent to burgers, and ‘drinks’ at a mocktail bar that did a student discount. They were cozied up together on a sofa looking at a tablet with a map up. 

Flora was recommending taking a detour through a park that had a living flower arch since it was only a five minute walk away from Stella’s second favourite shoe shop. Stella was hesitant not to go to her first favourite shoe shop, but since they still had two more days after this one, there was plenty of time for that.

“You’ll want to make sure that you both have clothes for the Welcome Dance with the Red Fountain guys,” Flora giggled. “It’s going to be a big deal this year because it’s just going to be us and the boys!”

“Oooh, got your eye on anyone?” Stella asked. “Bloom does, and good, no witches this year.”

“Not yet, and who?” Flora laughed and looked between them.

“N-no. I just…”

“I’ll tell you the whole story when we’re in town but he is super cute.”

“You have a guy in mind too, Stella!” Bloom was going pink. She hadn’t even had a text from Brandon yet, even though Stella had assured her that she’d passed on her number. Besides, she’d only just broken up with Andy so there really hadn’t been enough time for her to be ready for anyone else yet.

“Again!” Stella grinned. “I will tell the whole story, probably at dinner or drinks later. And I’ll make dress shopping my project before school starts.”

“Speaking of which, we should invite Tecna to come too,” Bloom said. The girl was making sure all her appliances were up and running for this dimension, after all.

“I’d love to come too,” the other girl shouted from the next room. “When are we going?”

“Probably after we all unpack,” Stella yelled back, as Flora held up her hand a little.

“What about the other girl who’s joining us?” 

“What about me?”

All of them turned to look at the doorway. Even Tecna, still wearing a pair of loupes, poked her head around the door to see her roommate. Their last suite-mate had a duffle bag slung over her shoulder and a gymsack in one hand. She waved at them as she went to dump her sports bags in front of the unoccupied sofa while the porter trailed behind her with her last suitcase.

“Yo,” she said, grinning at them all. “I’m Musa. Which one of you is Flora because I have so many ideas for the Events Committee.”

They all made their introductions and Musa was invited to join them on their excursion into Magix too. Since Bloom had, comparatively, only brought a small amount of stuff with her, she wandered around helping the others until Flora enlisted her help taking some of her less interesting plants down to the greenhouse.

All of her suite mates seemed to be nice girls, certainly more polite and definitely kinder than any of her classmates on Earth, but Bloom couldn’t help but be intimidated by them all. Flora and Musa were both scholarship students too, but unlike her they had extensive knowledge of what they’d be studying and were already making plans to overachieve in their extra-curricula activities. Next to them, Bloom felt that her place had been granted because her home planet was a gimmick.

Flora told her all about the Welcome Dance: it was a tradition stretching back decades and several of the first years joined the Events Committee to help plan it, although they only really had a say in some of the menu and decoration choices. Flora and Musa had been part of a group chat all summer, so knew a bit about each other already.

Apparently Musa was some kind of virtuoso and had managed to be assigned as the Maestro for the dance.

“Er, flute, saxophone, keyboard, guitar, and violin, I think,” Flora rattled off when Bloom asked what instruments the other girl played. “She sings too.”

Then there was Tecna, who came from a prominent family-run business empire on her home planet. She might not be royalty like Stella, but she was stinking rich from their ‘invisibility money’ as Flora referred to it. Bloom made a mental note to ask about that later.

All in all, she just felt like she came up short against her new companions. She wasn’t clever and talented, or a savant of some kind, and neither was she related to anyone interesting or royal. And why did they all have to be so beautiful? Surely, she had guiltily hoped, the nerdier ones would at least have bad ponytails and glasses. But instead she had a young J-Lo in her room and someone who could rock short pigtails across the living room.

Once their things were unpacked they all headed out to receive their student IDs from the front desk, along with their schedules for their first semester.

Classes were compared on the shuttle into Magix. All five of them shared the majority of their lessons with Bloom and Stella having opted for a study period and a cooking class instead of the more adventurous Magical Botany and Advanced Transfiguration that Flora and Tecna were both taking. Musa was using those slots to continue having music lessons for her many instruments.

They were all excited for the Welcome Dance, which was apparently a little bit famous for being extravagant, and for being one of the few times that fraternising with the boys of Red Fountain was actively encouraged. Dresses were in order and Magix was the place to get them.

Speaking of which, it turned out that the planet of Magix housed the city of Magix and when someone referred to ‘Magix’ they really could be talking about either. It took Bloom almost half the bus ride to realise this.

They found the burger bar and each took out a tab with their fingerprints (thankfully Flora was there to help) before settling in to read the menus.  
Flora stopped a waiter to order jugs of lemon and water for the table when she spotted another student from across the room.

“Amaryl!” she called and Stella pressed the menu into her face, groaning little.

“Hi, everyone.” The girl that Stella was unsuccessfully hiding from was a short, peach-haired student who pointedly ignored the princess. “I won’t stay long, I’m with Eleanor and the rest of my dorm but I just wanted to ask if you knew which flowers the Committee have decided on since they’ve given us newbies the job of actually ordering them…”  
Flora told them she was ready to order so to keep choosing their food for when the waiter got back, and then returned her attention to her fellow Events Committee member. Musa occasionally voiced her opinion, but it was obvious that Amaryl only had time for Flora.

Stella rolled her eyes but started talking about the burgers on offer.

Bloom stared at her menu for a few seconds before realising that she didn’t recognise the characters that everything was written in. No one else looked like they were having trouble reading, however. Remembering back to one of her earlier conversations with Stella, it occurred to her that the others must have been using the polyglot spell so that everyone could understand each other, but that the bistro they were in had assumed that all their customers could read this alphabet.

Annoyingly, they had chosen a big round table and Stella was all the way over on the opposite side of it from Bloom whereas Amaryl was standing pretty much behind her. There wasn’t any way that she could covertly ask her friend to translate.

“Er, guys?” she asked quietly. “I can’t read the menu.”

Stella and Flora glanced at her sympathetically, while Tecna just looked blank as was her resting face, Musa was clearly taken aback but didn’t say anything, however, she heard a snort from behind her head. Bloom shifted uncomfortably, imagining Amaryl’s face.

“How can you not read?” At least she didn’t say it loudly enough for anyone else but the table to hear.

“Amaryl!” Flora looked scandalised.

“It’s not that I can’t read,” Bloom was going red. The feeling of not quite belonging was returning and it panicked her, she had been so sure that this was right for her but maybe that had been all one massive mistake and she should go home. At least Earth, with its muted colours and awful classmates, had languages she could understand. “It’s just that I didn’t know that magical dimensions existed so I never had a chance to learn a new alphabet.”

“Yeah, but you have to have filled in forms to apply. How did you manage any of that if you can’t read our language?”

“Look,” Stella had finally emerged from behind her piece of card. “She’s got a special circumstance and it’s not like everyone else doesn’t use communication aides too.”

“Oh, hi, Stella. I didn’t see you from behind all the facilities you’ve destroyed. I wish my daddy was rich enough to just throw money at all my fuck-ups.”

“No, you wish he was rich enough to buy you a decent manicure and a haircut that doesn’t make you look twelve.”

“O-kay,” Musa laughed nervously and waved at Amaryl and her fellow committee member. “Why don’t you two catch up about the EC later on the group chat and the Amaryl can go back to her table and then there’s no need for Stella to try and eat her.”

Begrudgingly, Amaryl took her advice and walked away from their table, Stella making a crude gesture at her back.

“Well, now that that’s over…” Tecna raised her eyebrows. “Shall I translate for now and we’ll work out a way of making sure Bloom isn’t in the dark when we get back.” They were finally able to order when the waiter returned.

Despite the Amaryl situation, watching Stella talk to the others made Bloom wonder what the princess had been worried about on the bus over. She was quite the social butterfly, joking with Musa, finding common ground with Flora and even getting the blank-faced Tecna to crack a smile every once in a while. She really didn’t need Bloom here to support her.

Since most of the conversation was about fairy things and Bloom had got completely lost in a discussion about the political situation on Andros, she took the time to text her mum. Vanessa was always sympathetic whenever her daughter needed help in social situations and talking to her was sure to ease the encroaching homesickness. She drafted a quick message about how she felt and a cliff-notes version of what happened with Amaryl and pressed send.

Error.

She pressed send again and received the same service error alert.

“Ah, shit,” she muttered. There had to be an issue connecting her phone to the grid in this dimension.

“What?” Tecna tuned to look at her the instant she spoke out loud. Bloom blushed as the table’s attention was back on her and shrugged awkwardly.

“My phone won’t send texts for some reason.” As soon as she said it she knew what was going to happen, so just let Tecna take the device out of her hands and inspect it. She made a few ‘hmm’ing noises and then swiftly removed the back to Bloom’s surprise… wasn’t there at least a few screws holding it together?

Flora and Musa exchanged amused looks as the girl from Zenith pried out the battery so she could examine what was behind it. She’d pulled out two thin metal instruments from her jeans’ pocket and started tapping away as the rest of the table looked on with a mixture of surprise, horror, and curiosity.

“Bloom?” Flora rested a hand on her shoulder. “The bar will have a phone you can borrow, if you’d like to call anyone.”

She felt awkward asking the bartender, but he didn’t seem to mind and led her through the bistro and into the corridor to the kitchen where the landline was attached to the wall.

“Just speak the dimension you want to reach into the receiver and then dial the number. If it is an-interplanetary call, we ask that you keep the time spent on the line to a minimum.”

Bloom nodded and he left once she picked up the phone. She muttered ‘Earth’ and then called her mum’s number. The other wall, the one she was facing once she put her back to the phone’s wall-mounting, was made of glass panels that looked out onto a pretty stone garden square that the bistro shared with maybe two other businesses. One was a dive bar, a really grimy one with overflowing dumpsters and some staff in grubby uniforms on a smoke break outside. There were only a few windows and the lights from them flicked between red and blue.

“Hello?” the sound of her mother’s voice interrupted her curiosity.

“Hi! Er, Mum, it’s me.”

“Bloom!” Vanessa’s smile could be heard through the phone. “How are you doing sweetie?” A barrage of questions followed and Bloom tried her hardest to answer each one before the next came.

As her mother talked, Bloom watched as the back door to the dive bar opened and two girl came out. They made a gesture to the smoking staff and they put out their cigarettes and filed back in. Where they the bosses of the bar? They seemed pretty young, maybe only a year or two older than her, and they were dressed much more like students than landlords. One (dressed entirely in pale blue and with blinding white hair forming a halo around her head) was clearly in charge; the other woman, a dark-skinned girl in all red, deferred to her.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve met all my suite-mates,” she said, realising that her mum had left her a gap to speak. “They seem really nice.”

Red and Blue spoke to one another for about thirty seconds before a third girl joined them, shuffling behind her was a hulking yellow monstrosity… was that an ogre? Was that the same ogre?

It was hard to tell from this distance since his features were quite small anyway. He was the right size and colour for the one that had attacked her on earth. Part of her brain asked whether she was being racist.

“Just wanted to check in with you, I’m fine,” Bloom promised, although it was more because she needed to get Vanessa off the phone so she could get a closer look than because she had confidence that it would all work out at Alfea. “I’ll call you again soon, Mum, but I have to go now.”

“Bye, darling!”

She hung up and snuck further down the corridor. It was at an angle that meant the further towards the kitchen she went the closer she got to the four by the bar even though they were across the square to her.

It was a shame that she couldn’t lipread because, while she could see their mouths moving, she couldn’t hear a damned thing. As beautiful as all three women were, looking at them sent a chill down Bloom’s spine and she was torn between staying and watching and running far away from them. It wasn’t just their aura, either, the new girl and the black girl in the red dress both wore dark frowns while their leader had a cruel smile on her face. She’d rather face Mitzy everyday in Algebra for the rest of her life than talk to them.

At the far end of the corridor was a window that she cracked open just a little. Maybe they were also using the polyglot spell. The new girl, the one with dramatic purple eyeshadow, turned around, as if she’d heard the quiet squeak the frame had made. Bloom almost had a heart attack, thinking she’d been seen, but the girl turned back to talk to the others. Still nothing to be heard though.

Bloom let out a sigh that quickly turned into a squeal of surprise as Purple disappeared into thin air, the other three seemingly not caring that their friend was all of a sudden not with them anymore.

“What have we here?” a cool voice said behind her and Bloom didn’t have time to turn before she was hurtling though the glass, propelled by a ball of scorching heat in the small of her back. Bloom hit the ground near the centre of the square, her shoulder glancing painfully off the cobbles. In any other circumstance she might have been impressed by the distance she’d flown. 

Looking up she could see, with difficulty, Purple walking out of the shattered window after her. The girl was smiling, her gloved hands flipping long hair out of her face in a way not dissimilar to Stella’s tick but wholly more sinister.

“So, fairy…” Bloom scrambled to her feet, wobbling about uncertainly, to see Red and Blue coming towards her too. Despite the dread filling her and whatever disorienting affect Purple had give her, she was able to make sure that, yes, that was the same ogre that had attacked her on Earth. “What were you doing over there by the kitchen? You’re not a waitress, and you're certainly no chef.” Blue’s voice was sharp and harsh and made her shudder.

“I was phoning my mum,” she said quietly.

“That’s funny,” Red laughed. “You’re funny. I didn’t see a phone on you, did you see a phone on her, Darcy?” Purple joined in her cackling from behind Bloom.

“Sisters,” Blue said, coolly. “Why don’t we teach this little sprite what we do to liars?”

“Stay away from me!” Bloom opened her palms the way Stella had shown her and let lose a small fireball at the leader. She was met with a pitying stare as Blue blew gently on the flames, her breath freezing the air and the little sphere on magic coming towards her. The flames disintegrated into the air.

“Cute,” she said, waving her hands at Bloom. “Darcy, Stormy, have your fun.” The fairy tried to run but she couldn’t move her feet. She barely had time to register that her shoes were frozen to the ground before the ice reached the skin of her ankles and she was well and truly stuck. The ice froze to her sweat and Bloom was unpleasantly reminded of when tongues stuck to lamp posts. The extreme cold on what had, up until then, been a warm day, shocked her and she didn’t even reacts a crackling ball of static came hurtling towards her.

Pain exploded in her side when it hit her and suddenly she was screaming in agony. Wind buffeted her around in a circle, the skin stuck to the ice sending shoots of pain up her legs as it threatened to tear away from her.

Darcy was speaking some kind of magical language and Bloom lost all sense of up and down. She collided with the ground as she fell back, unable to move her feet, only to be flung forward again by the wind, the top of the ice cutting into her thigh when she fell onto it’s icicles. Her hot blood hissed against the freezing temperature of the ice.

The pain, the cold, and whatever spell Darcy had cast on her were making her slip away from reality. She thought she could see four more figures running towards her and she wondered what they’d do to her too.

“Wrap it up!” she heard Blue yell and then she was totally submerged in the ice, her air cut off from her and the blackness that had been threatening to take over her vision won out.

***

Stella screamed out Bloom’s name as she came running. She’d never attempted to transform while moving, but damn it, she was doing it now. Flora and Musa were quick behind her, changing into their fairy forms too, and heading for the ogre. Stella reached her frozen friend and started gathering hot light in her hands, her powers had to be able to melt some frost, she wasn’t just the fairy of the sun, she was the sun. That’s what her father kept telling her.

The ogre went flying from a sonic blast from Musa only to be caught by tangling vines as Aura magic swept passed them to put up a wall between the frozen girl and the witches. Stella had heard of fairies and wizards on Zenith using this kind of magic to create barriers but it was quite something else to see the green mist solidifying around them.   
Herself, and both Musa and Flora were starting to shiver uncontrollably. The temperature had dropped to subzero and was still falling. Only Tecna seemed unfazed, her fairy form covered substantially more skin and she was from Zenith after all.

“Get Bloom out of there!” Tecna yelled, and Stella pushed herself harder to heat up her hands and melt the ice.

“Oh, you have friends.” 

Stella remembered the girl in front of her from last year. From the high, white ponytail to the dark blue transformation suit she wore, to the cold voice, it was all Esmerelda although she was almost universally known by another name.

A chilled mist rolled up against the barrier, ice crystals forming against it and rolling upwards. Tecna screw up her eyes, concentrating as hard as she could not to let the protective wall fall under the onslaught of power Icy was throwing into her spell. Through her squinted eyes she could see water slowly dripping down the frozen statue of Bloom. It wasn’t enough.

From behind the others, Stormy rose up into the air and the wind picked up further, making it almost impossible to stay standing or to keep eyes open. She was laughing hard, deep and cackling.

“You’re Princess of Solaria, right?” Tecna screamed over the noise.

“Yeah!”

“Then you have the ring, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Use it!”

“What?”

“Use it on all of us, and take us away!” The air swallowed some of what Tecna said but Stella had heard enough. She almost lost the sword-ring getting it off her finger, but she was able to summon its sword form.

“Alfea!” she shouted as she raised the sceptre above her head. There was a flash of light and all of the fairies, Stella hoped, where pulled away.


	6. The Weirdest Start to School Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last week was a little late so have this one a little early.  
> Also, I've always done some form of writing as a hobby so how come I'be never realised how much time it takes up and how much of a ball ache editing is?!?

Bloom was cold. Probably the coldest she had ever been in her life. She had seen snow before, and even played in it too, but she had never been this frozen before. Where was her hat and her scarf? She wasn’t wearing gloves either and there was no way her mum would ever let her out in the cold without gloves on.

She groaned and tried to sit up only to feel hands softly press her back down. Oh, she was in a bed. That was weird. Bloom’s eyes flickered open to see a larger woman with orange hair and glasses gently returning her to a horizontal position.

“There, there, stay lying down. Your temperature got very low so we’re just working on warming you up,” she said. Bloom realised that the woman was probably the school nurse given her white coat and the stethoscope around her neck. “Take a moment and then tell me what happened.”

“Cold,” she managed to get out. She was passed a blanket that she hurriedly pulled around herself.

“Have some water too. I’ll get Ms Faragonda.”

Bloom tried to get out some questions about why the headmistress had to be here and what was going on, but her lips were too cold to form words properly so she just made an unintelligible noise as the nurse left, and then drank her water like she was told.

The door was a safety door that closed quickly up until the last few inches when it was caught and slowly ‘shump’-ed into the frame. During the last few seconds that it was open, she heard a chorus of people asking after her. She didn’t hear the reply but she was sure that Stella was out there, and Tecna too. That probably meant that the other two were waiting for her as well and that warmed her.

That feeling died, however, when Ms Faragonda walked in. The old woman had a serious expression on her face that didn’t match the brightly coloured suit she was wearing. When she saw Bloom’s nervous face, she gave her a weary smile and went to sit on the edge of her bed.

“You’ve had bit of an eventful first day, haven’t you?” she said. “You’ve made some friends though, they’re all very worried about you. But, before I let them in, I just wanted to ask you what you remembered happening.”

She recounted what happened as best she could, although part of it were fuzzy. Bloom couldn’t really work out why she’d been attacked other than they thought she was eavesdropping (which she was, but she hoped that she left that ambiguous. She hadn’t told anyone at the school about the ogre attack and she didn’t know if Stella had either) and that made her feel like Faragonda wouldn’t believe her.

“Thank you for telling me that. The girls you ran into were from Cloud Tower, I hope you understand why I told you not to engage with them now,” Bloom hung her head. 

“I’ve reported the incident to the Magix Police, but since they’re students their punishment will come from their Headmistress.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not angry with you, Bloom. I would like you to be more careful though,” Faragonda squeezed her hand and then got up, nodding to the nurse. “I leave her to you Ofelia. You let her friends in now if you think it wise.”

Stella, Flora, Musa and Tecna all piled in as soon as they were allowed. Stella was the first by her side, gripping her hand and pulling her into a hug. The others clustered around the foot of her bed.

“Don’t crowd her!” Ofelia snapped, waving them back. “You need some hot tea. You’ll be good to go as soon as you feel able to move comfortably. I’ve fixed your leg although that doesn’t mean you can go running on it. Come back tomorrow so I can check on it and, in the meantime, keep yourself warm.” She went back to her desk on the other side of a glass door.

Stella immediately pulled the privacy curtain around the bed.

“What happened?” she hissed. Musa rolled her eyes and sat down by Bloom’s feet, muttering:

“What she means is, how are you feeling and if you’re okay, tell us what happened.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stella waved that away. “Seriously, you went to talk to your mum and five minutes later you’re screaming with the witches attacking you.”

“I saw the ogre from Earth.” Bloom’s mouth had to work hard to get the words out, although the tea was making it easier.

“You saw the ogre again?”

“You’ve seen the ogre before?” 

Both Stella and Bloom turned to look at the other three girls. It had been Tecna who’d spoken, but all of them had dark expressions on their faces, even Flora was lacking her usual sweet smile.

“Okay, can we explain when we get back to the dorm?”

Once Bloom had finished her tea she was ready to hobble back to their suite. While there wasn’t so much as a scar where the gash had been, her whole leg alternated between completely numb and excruciatingly tingly. She changed out of the light medical shift and into a t-shirt and sweatpants while Flora brewed her more tea and   
Stella wrapped her in a blanket.

When they were all settled on the sofa, Bloom and Stella told the story of how they met, stressing the complete bafflement over how Stella was ambushed mid-spell and why an ogre (even one linked to witches) would be so brazen as to try and steal the Ring of Solaria right off the princess’ finger.

“The thing is,” Stella said. “I know those witches. Well, like, not personally, obviously. But they’re third years and I heard a lot about them when I was here before. Basically they’ve got a real nasty attitude and have no problems solving things with a fight. It’ not like Bloom is the first person they’ve attacked, but they somehow never get in trouble for it, they’ve never even been suspended.”

“How is that possible?” Flora asked. “There’s a whole protocol in our school handbook on what happens if we get into fights.”

“That’s Cloud Tower for you,” Musa shrugged. “Witches have a very different code to fairies and it shows. I bet Ms Griffin praises them for it.”

“Yeah,” Stella nodded. “They’re not ‘teacher’s pets’ but they’re well thought of there. Ask any witch and they’ll tell you about how they look up to Icy, Darcy, and Stormy and want to be them.”

“Wait, is that girl actually called Icy?” Bloom looked confused. Maybe it was a tradition on some dimension to name a kid after their magical affinity (Icy certainly was fitting) but surely they didn’t show magic at birth? Maybe it was just an odd case of nominative determinism.

“Ha,” Stella shook her head and answered her. “No, she’s called Esmerelda and ‘Stormy’ is Shea.”

“What about Darcy? What’s her real name?”

“D-Darcy…”

“Oh right, I forgot that was a real name…” Bloom blushed as Stella laughed.

“Go easy on her,” Flora said, reaching an arm around Bloom’s shoulders and readjusting her blanket. “She was frozen an hour ago! She hasn’t even eaten.”

“Oh that reminds me,” Tecna said. “I asked the restaurant to put our food in doggie bags and deliver them. You guys will have to pay me back though.”

Bloom was suddenly starving. The burger she’d ordered looked better than it had when she’d picked it out, it was still hot too. Whatever condiment they’d sent with her chips was so much tastier than the ketchup she’d been expecting. She wolfed the food down in a few minutes and then ran her finger through the remnants of the sauce and licking it off.

“Stella, I have a question.” Tecna spoke again clearly weighing what she wanted to say carefully. “Why haven’t you told your parents about what happened with the ogre? I assume you have a good reason not to immediately go to them about an attack on your person.”

“If my father finds out he will immediately withdraw me from school and hole me up in a tower somewhere I can’t see anyone but palace staff. I fought really hard to be able to come back to Alfea and I’m not losing my chance to have a fresh start.”

Tecna met her eye and then gave a curt nod.

“I won’t say anything to anyone then.” Stella gave her a similar sharp nod back.

Flora looked between them and smiled, cuddling Bloom closer to her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “Has the food helped?”

“Yeah, yeah it has.” Bloom smiled. “But I’m still a bit homesick. I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to my mum before I saw the witches and the ogre.”

“I will let you know as soon as I have finished with your phone. Earth technology is so interesting and counter intuitive. I had to use three different screwdrivers, one of which I had to fashion myself to get anywhere with it. Thank you for letting me work on it.”

They stayed chatting in the common room for a while before they each started getting ready for bed. Musa and Flora both put on face masks while Stella oiled her hair and put it into a turban, Tecna just changed into her pyjamas and brushed her teeth before returning to Bloom’s phone.

“Would you like me to do your hair?” Stella offered. 

“Could I try some too, please?” Flora asked after Bloom agreed.

“Yeah, sure. It’s my own creation and the reason for my glorious locks!” Stella ran her hand over her turban dramatically to make her point.

Bloom made eye contact with Flora as Stella massaged her scalp. The Linphea fairy smiled at her. She had so much more control over her power than Bloom did, she could transform and push her magic into a useful form, they all could. But both her and Musa had achieved that without the help of money or status.

“Flora?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think I’m a good enough fairy to be here?” Stella’s hands paused in her hair before she continued as if she was choosing not to interrupt. Flora looked surprised.

“Of course! Bloom, why wouldn’t you be good enough to be here?”

“Because I have so much less control over magic than everyone else here. I can’t even transform…”

“Bloom, everyone learns at their own pace. There are plenty of fairies that come to Alfea without the ability to transform. That’s the point of school; to learn.”

“You don’t think I stole someone’s place?” Bloom hung her head. She had been given so much money and allowances, and such a unique chance that she just didn’t think she deserved.

“I can answer that one.” Stella said, from behind her. “Now flip your hair forward so I can wrap it. I know exactly whose place you took.”

“What?” Bloom obeyed her command, tears forming in her eyes as she stared through her hair.

“Varanda, Princess of Callisto was supposed to come this year but at the last moment she decided to be homeschooled at the palace instead. When I met you, I had been on my way to Alfea, like I said, to give in her letter of withdrawal. If she hadn't dropped out there wouldn’t have been a space for you, and if you hadn’t come along the space wouldn’t have been filled. That’s how I know this was meant to be.” Stella finished tying the scarf and patted Bloom's head through it. “Now go to bed, we have to get all your school stuff tomorrow.”

The next morning all five ate breakfast together, a buffet that rivalled any Earth hotel spread, before splitting up for each of their respective morning activities. Musa and Flora would be decorating the great hall, Tecna had her first session of the Computer Club, and Stella and Bloom went back into Magix to buy her books and stationary. 

They made plans to meet after lunch to have a look for dresses for the Welcome Dance.

Bloom let Stella take her to boutiques in between going to the shops that were on the equipment list. Bloom was pleased to find that the exchange rate was about one to one and was able to make a mental budget of what she could spend this semester. She was persuaded by Stella to buy some luxury beauty products that left a little dent in her grant but she’d never used magical conditioner or foundation before and she wanted to know if these were the reason that everyone here was so beautiful.

While Flora and Musa were having a committee lunch, Tecna came into Magix to join the other two and see what they’d bought. Bloom was ecstatic to find that she had come armed with a fully-functioning phone too.

“I changed the battery out for one that will hold more charge, but the main thing is you are fully online,” Tecna said, showing her the effects of her tampering. “It’s a very strange design. I had to use magic to get the back off in the first place before all the screwdrivers. It’s like they don’t want you to be able to get into your phone, that has to be illegal right? Also, as soon as I got you connected you got about a million texts from some random number that you probably want to have a look at.”

Confused, and with Stella peering over her shoulder, Bloom opened up the messages one by one. 

+98 XXX XXXX X72  
Hi Bloom, it’s Brandon. It was good to meet you on Earth, hopefully I’ll see you in Magix soon.

+98 XXX XXXX X72  
Hey Bloom, just wanted to check that you were okay after what happened with the Troll and Ogre

+98 XXX XXXX X72  
Let me know if you want to be shown round Magix at all, I’d love to show you a cafe in the centre.

“Thirsty, isn’t he,” Stella laughed. “Maybe you don’t need me to set you up with anyone else, you’ve got boys all sorted.”

“I don’t think I’m ready yet, though,” Bloom said quietly. There was still a part of her that desperately wanted Andy to fall at her feet and beg to be taken back, although she was no longer sure that, should he actually do so, she would obliged. “I should probably call him to make sure he doesn’t think I’m ignoring him.”

“Uhuh,” Stella winked at her as she got up to walk a little way away and call his number. “So Tecna, have you got any boys in your life? Or girls, I suppose.”

“No, I’m not really interested in anyone at the moment, or the prospect of anyone really,” Bloom hear her reply as the phone started to ring.

“Hello, Bloom?” Brandon’s voice took her back to seeing him fight. And those muscles.

“Hi!” she said and then realised she needed to keep talking. “Um, I just got my phone online in Magix and I got your texts.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “I hope that doesn’t reflect badly on me.”

“No, not at all. I just wanted to say that I would love some help being shown Magix.” Oh crap, that sounded like a date. “Stella’s taking the lead with that right now, but more people are always welcome. Maybe, if Sky’s not busy, he could join us too. I know Stella would love that.”

“Yeah, that would be a good idea.” He didn’t sounded disappointed at all. “I kind of have to stick close to Sky at all times anyway. Hey, would it be a problem if I invited Riven too? I know he can be a bit… but I think it would be good for him and us to all hang out together. Timmy’s fun as well, so I’d like him to come too.”

“Oh right, no, you can invite them, I don’t mind.”

“Great! I kind of have to go now though, maybe we can talk about it more at the Welcome Dance?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you soon.” She heard him coo at what she hoped was a dog called Lady, and not an actual woman, before he said his goodbyes. Turning back around to see both Tecna and Stella watching her.

“So?” Stella asked eagerly.

“We’re going to meet up as a group sometime soon. Brandon’s going to find me at the dance to talk about it more. I assume you’d want to come too since Prince Sky will be there.”

“Ooh!” Stella squealed. “Bloom, you are the best!”

They finished up their meal in time for both Musa and Flora to arrived and Stella took the opportunity to fill everyone in about the two boys that were showing interest while Bloom fact checked. Then the phone was produced and all five of them scrutinised the texts that Brandon had sent.

“I wish you’d sent texts back,” Musa scolded when Bloom couldn’t recall exactly what she’d said to him down the phone. Tecna, who looked more sympathetic than the rest, eventually took pity on her and suggested that they start the shopping trip before they ran out of time.

All five of them headed out to the first shop on the list and took stock again of what they needed to get. Tecna already had her dress, something about the ordering and sizing system on Zenith being more to her liking, but was looking for shoes and earrings; whereas Musa had been saving for a good while to get one of two dresses from a certain boutique. Stella, however, was taking the outing as a challenge to find and buy the most expensive garment in each store. Bloom had never seen anyone throw money around the way the princess did.

For her part, Bloom had a good look around each place they went but she was still unfamiliar with Magix fashion and was unwilling to spend such a large amount of money on something she might only wear once. There was one dress, a gorgeous blue with the obligatory midriff-baring cut-out, that Bloom thought she’d be able to wear at her grandparents’ Christmas party but when she looked, the tag revealed a price that rivalled Stella’s purchases.

Awkwardly, she made eye contact with a sympathetic Flora who gave her a sweet smile and turned to Stella.

“Hey, I just remembered there’s a place I’d like to go a couple of streets over. Since neither Bloom or I need a perfume update, do you think I could take her with me and meet up at the shop after the perfumery?” Stella agreed, still pawing at the jewellery collection, and so Flora took Bloom’s hand and pulled her outside.

“Flora?”

“There’s a really great thrift shop nearby that’s really more my speed. You looked a bit lost so I hope you don’t mind joining me?” Flora giggled, taking hold of her hands.

It was a nice change of pace from the designer boutiques. The sales assistant was certainly less formal and was willing to dig through the rails with them. Flora’s family were working class on an affluent planet, as she described it, and while she was perfectly happy to peruse the designer stuff she didn’t want to spend her money on clothes like that. She was, Flora said, adding the finishing touches to a dress she had made herself.

“You can sew?” Bloom asked, impressed, and Flora laughed.

“Everyone is always so surprised, it’s a really useful skill. How about this one?” Flora held up a matching skirt and crop top..

It had a lot of ribbon to be done up that Bloom needed help with, Flora stepping into the changing cubicle to tie it around her arms.

“You look so good in blue,” she said, nodding appreciatively. “I bet your fairy form will be blue.”

“You mean like Stella’s is orange?”

“Yeah, it just suits, you know?”

“How did you achieve your fairy form?” Bloom asked and then wished she hadn’t. That was a rather personal question, wasn’t it? Flora, to her credit, just smiled and shrugged.

“I was in a position of great need of my magic. I channeled that feeling of desperation, of the need to protect, back into myself and believed that I could. It gets easier to change the more often you do it, so you’ll see plenty of fairies just flying around Alfea with their wings out.”

“And you think I’ll be able to do that?”

“Of course! The school has a whole practical course at the beginning of the Metamorphosis class that puts you in situations that are perfect to bring out your form. Tell you what, if you’re not in a fairy form by the end of the first week I’ll tutor you! Now, come look in the mirror.”

They both agreed that this was the outfit. The only thing that needed altering was the length but Flora promised that they could use her sewing machine to hem it once they got back to their room. She also assure Bloom that she could borrow any of her perfumes since she had actually been hoping to pick up a scent at the shop they missed. Bloom had to waved her profuse apologies away and thank her for taking her to a place where she could buy a reasonably priced outfit. The skirt and top had cost around the same as any one of the luxury cosmetics she had bought with Stella.

They met up with the others just before they went into the accessory shop and Stella launched herself at Bloom, shopping bags in hand.

“I found it!” she proclaimed, pulling out a slinky, orange number. “The dress I shall wear! It cost a fortune but it was just in the window calling out to me ‘buy me, buy me please!’”

“And, of course, you answered its plea,” Musa snorted.

“I am bound to make an impression on Sky!” She giggled and hugged Bloom with one arm. “And I’m sure you’ll make an impression on Brandon, maybe even Riven too, I saw how he looked at you!”

“Riven?” Both Tecna and Musa repeated the name at the same time, looking disgusted and embarrassed respectively. Stella turned her head between them in confusion. Now that she thought about it, Bloom wasn't either of them had mentioned either of the other two boys to their friends yet.

“Yeah, Riven, purple hair, sharp cheekbones, face like a slapped arse… need I go on?” Stella said, waving her hand.

“I know him, and I don’t think Bloom wants to be involved with him,” Tecna shook her head. “I went to prep school with him and he’s just got this chip on his shoulder about everything. He’s got such negative energy I don’t understand how anyone can be around him. Is that your impression Musa?”

“Er, y-yeah,” she said, blushing, and Bloom thought that maybe Musa’s experience of the boy was more one of attraction than repulsion.


	7. The Weirdest Dance Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About 20 minutes late... oops?  
> I'll post the next one at quarter to midnight on Tuesday to make up for it?

It seemed that the Welcome Dance was an even bigger deal than Bloom had realised. It was only herself and Musa that weren’t throwing themselves into preparations after breakfast, both of them watching as Stella and Tecna pooled their makeup and started cleaning brushes while Flora applied creams to her hair and face and went to meditate next to her plants.

“Do you want to go into Magix?” Bloom asked Musa. “There are a few attractions in the guide that I’d like to go see.”

They perused the booklet on the shuttle, deciding to visit the outdoor market on their way to the Temple of Fate. Bloom had been excited about the temple since she’d seen its facade for the first time with Stella and was thrilled to have someone to come with her since the princess was uninterested in the cultural landmark. Musa offered Bloom a headphone so they could share the music on her phone.

The screensaver was a selfie of Musa and a balding middle-aged man eating ice cream cones together and smiling. Bloom guessed that it was probably her father since the curve of their smiles were the same and so were their blue eyes. They weren’t Earth blue eyes, they were much darker and richer, almost purple. Bloom was envious - she’d always thought that hers looked watered down.

She couldn’t understand the lyrics in the songs, but she could got their tone and Musa gave her a brief run down of what each one was about and a little about each composition. One apparently sampled the sounds from Melody’s singing whales.

The shuttle dropped them off close to the centre of Magix and they walked around until they found the entrance to the market not too far away from the temple itself.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Bloom said as she picked up a nail polish from a basket to inspect it closer. It had a a blue and white polka dot pattern on the pot and she couldn’t tell which colour it was supposed to be.

“You’re welcome! Thanks for inviting me, I’m not sure I could spend a whole day rubbing creams on myself. Maybe an hour or two but…” Musa trailed off and shrugged then looked at the polish still in Bloom’s hand. “Do you like that one?”

“Um, I don’t know? What colour is it?”

“Blue and white polka dot.”

“What, like the pattern?”

“Yeah.” 

Bloom stared at it in surprise, although she felt she really should have expected this. Of course fairies would have come up with a way to do manicures more easily. With that knowledge she started to dig through the basket more and decided on a blue and gold marble effect polish instead.

“Things are much different here than on Earth, huh?” Musa asked after they’d paid for their things.

“So much different, but only in ways that sneak up on me.” 

“I guess it’s not too much more different than it is for me, Magix has a lot more infrastructure and welfare programs than Melody. I’m always so surprised when they tell me there are no restrictions on what I spend my grants on.” Musa laughed and led Bloom further towards the square and the temple.

“What’s Melody like? I haven’t heard of any of the other dimensions really, other than Solaria.”

“Wet.” Musa replied. “Wet and a monarchy. We have a princess too, not unlike Stella, who’ll probably join us in a few years.”

“Is it the planet of Music?”

“As much as Solaria is the dimension of the Sun and Moon in that the majority of fairies from Melody have some kind of sound or music magic but we really don’t have the monopoly on it. You’ll find people with the same cryokinesis as Icy on Linphea and Tecna’s Aura magic on the sea planet of Andros.” Musa shrugged. “Oh look, the temple gift shop has a student discount.”

The Temple of Fate was big enough that while it was one of the primary attractions of the city of Magix, it felt empty despite all the other people on tours or with guided headsets. It was dimly lit with only braziers only every fifth column in the main hall and the room seemed to stretch on and on before them.

The women in the friezes were repeated in marble statues at the far end. According to the plaque, they were the original Nymphs of Magix, the guardian fairies of the twelve dimensions. 

Apparently there was an original set of twelve nymphs that founded the order and then there had been many iterations of them since. Each of the ten foot statues had an extravagant mask over the top half of their faces and Bloom was of the opinion that it had made the sculptors job easier since the style utilised a lot of artistic license and it wasn't specified which iteration the nymph was.

Behind them, on the wall, were portraits of more of them and Bloom had to admit that the colours did add a lot to the very anonymous looking figures.

“Move!” Bloom quickly stepped aside as two girl walked up behind her and barged into the space she’d just been in a moment before. Musa seized her elbow and pulled her further away from the pair.

“Hey! What?”

“Witches,” Musa hissed. “Can’t you see the fishnets and the heavy boots?” Sure enough, one was in a minuscule red dress and heeled boots with fishnet tights and the other was in combat boots with fishnets showing through the rips in her trousers. Bloom marvelled at their colourful hair too. Although they were both more muted and duller than many of the others she’d seen around Magix, they still had purple and green hair respectively.

“Are those things compulsory?” Bloom hissed, remembering Icy, Darcy and Stormy’s footwear. Hell, Stormy was wearing the tights too.

“Dunno, maybe there’s a store that gives Cloud Tower discounts. Anyway, I want a photo next to that painting, far away from them.”

The portrait that Musa pulled her next to and then into the frame of her phone’s camera, was of ‘Daphne, Nymph of Magix, Nymph of Sirenix’ who wore one of the masks and was dressed in what Bloom would have called a gold ‘Grecian’ gown but was probably something else.

She smiled for the camera and Musa took a couple of photos of them before they moved off. The witches that had taken their place by the marbles both gave them the finger.

“Ugh,” Musa said and rolled her eyes. “They’re just jealous because they’re not invited to the Welcome Dance.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, they kept pulling pranks and each year they got more and more extreme. Eventually enough students and parents complained that Ms Faragonda had to stop inviting them. Won’t make any difference; part of the Witch’s Code is to be proud so they’ll still find a way to pull one,” Musa shrugged. “They’re always unpleasant but nothing that can’t be reversed by the staff. Do you want anything from the gift shop?”

It wasn’t so much a gift shop as a small market, Bloom thought, but was happy to buy a posy of flowers to put in her hair for the dance and a blue crystal pendant on a leather necklace. Musa decided against buying anything for herself but picked up a tin whistle for her father back on Melody.

“It’s kind of an inside joke between us,” she explained as they wandered back to the bus stop. “He got me just the worst mini ukulele when I got accepted into Alfea.” 

They returned to eat lunch in the Alfea cafeteria and Bloom was surprised to find that, despite the rest of the school turning up that day, the dinner hall was almost empty. Griselda was the only teacher at the staff table and she looked up only momentarily at their arrival before going back to her tea.

“Where is everyone?” Bloom asked as they helped themselves to the buffet.

“I guess we’re a bit early,” Musa shrugged. “Although I’m pretty sure I heard Stella talking about some juice that keeps your stomach flat so maybe they’re all drinking that?”

“Maybe.”

They ate in silence for a little while, Bloom still getting used to the foreign but tasty food, and Musa staring off into the distance with the tin whistle still in hand. Musa spoke again eventually, when she had almost finished her plate.

“You’ve met Riven, right?”

“Yeah?” Bloom wasn’t sure that she liked where this conversation was headed but couldn’t think of a way to end it politely.

“What did you think of him?”

“He’s a bit grumpy and arrogant, but he did fight the troll on his own for a while and Brandon says he just doesn’t have many friends. We were going to arrange a group outing with us and the guys so he can’t be as bad as Tecna says.” He was quite pretty, in a jagged, bad boy kind of way too although Bloom wasn’t going to tell Musa that.

“I met him at sports camp over the summer, he was on my mixed volleyball team and my badminton partner. He really isn’t as bad as people make out.” Musa looked at her plate uncomfortably.

“No, of course not… do you talk to him much?”

“What? No,” Musa looked caught of guard. “I don’t even have his number…”

“Why don’t you ask for it,” Bloom suggested, knowing full well that she had never been able to just ask a guy for his number and that, had Brandon not got hers from Stella, she would not be in touch with him now. “I could ask Brandon for it if that would help?”

“No! N-no, I’m okay.” Musa was going red. “Hey, I haven’t seen your outfit for the dance yet. Have you altered it yet?”

They put their dishes away on the trolleys next to the kitchen and then headed back upstairs to where the other three were still primping and preening and drinking green smoothies through straws. Stella was generously applying cocoa butter to her legs while Flora had had a shower and was putting her wet hair into rollers, Tecna was mostly ready and had gone back to her computer projects.

Bloom showed Stella the marbeled lacquer and immediately had an offer for someone to paint her nails for her. She was offered a smoothie but turned it down as she had her suspicions about its supposed effect. Stella told her a lot about a magazine that was covering the Welcome Dance - apparently it was really a way of showing off the schools in attendance and that’s what the article would really be about, but there were always entry photos and some of them were published. She waited for her hands and feet to dry while Stella messed with her hair.

“Bloom, when you’re ready I’ll set up the sewing machine for you and you can alter your dress,” Flora said.

Since her nails still airing out Bloom relaxed in the sofa, preferring to watch Musa as she got ready instead. The girl from Melody liked to sing as she did her hair and make up, tapping out a beat on the coffee table and making her glass of water sing along with her.

When her top coat was finally dry, Bloom went to examine the sewing machine that Flora had left out for her. It didn’t look exactly like the ones on Earth but she was able to roughly work out how to thread everything through after giving it a good look through.

“You’re cutting it a bit fine,” Bloom heard Stella say to Musa. “Haven’t you and Flora got to be down early for the set-up?”

“I’ll be fine, I don’t need long to make myself look incredible. Boys won’t be able to keep their eyes to themselves,” Musa giggled. “You come a close second though, Tecna.”

“I don’t care about boys, or parties all that much.”

“Oh? Then why have you spent the last few hours making yourself look like a total diva?”

“That’s besides the point; you attend a ceremony, you dress accordingly.”

Bloom laugh at her response from the other room as she started pinning the hem up to sew. The material was slippy, almost like silk but without the shine, and she had to move very carefully so she didn’t move the material out of place with the pins. It stretched a bit too and she had to keep holding the skirt up and trying it on to get it right. Flora was able to help her a bit before she had to go with Musa down to the great hall.

Stella stayed in the room with her as she tried to get the hem not to stretch as it went under the foot. The princess was no help as she’d never so much as looked at a sewing machine before in her life and, although it plugged into the mains, Tecna could only promise help if she was able to take it apart and put it back together again and that would take longer than they had.

The time ticked closer and she could tell that Stella was getting antsy. Both the other girl were ready, and she wasn’t even dressed yet. The ring of Solaria kept being slid on and off her finger before she finally decided to put in her jewellery box.

“You can go, if you want,” Bloom insisted. “I won’t be long, just save me a seat at the banquet table and I’ll be right behind you.”

“Are you sure?” Stella looked like she might die if Bloom changed her mind.

“I’m sure, I don’t want you to wait around for me.”

If Bloom had been sensible, she would have started her sewing project in the morning and put off going sightseeing until later. She found that if she went slowly she was able to make a good stitch that didn’t bunch everything up, but wondered why she hadn’t just pinned it and called it a day. Oh well, it was too late now.

The skirt was mostly even when she was finished, but nowhere in Flora’s kit was a pair of scissors. Pins, needles, bobbins, fabric chalk, but nothing to cut with.

“Damn it,” Bloom hissed and hurried out of the suite. She knew there was a crafts room on the ground floor and that had to have scissors, right? Fairies couldn’t just have a universal spell for cutting things that everyone could use.

The school was deserted as she ran down staircases and looked into classrooms. There were too many doors that weren’t numbered or signed but she found what she thought looked like a supply cupboard and opened that.

It wasn’t much brighter in the hall than inside the cupboard and she squinted as her eyes adjusted. That was weird. It looked like a supply cupboard and hey, scissors, but there was no back to it. It was a tunnel leading underground disguised as a closet.

Against her better judgement, Bloom walked in and passed by all the cleaning and general supplies to get to the steps. How far did the subterranean tunnel go? More importantly, how far was she going to investigate this?

Careful not to go too far in, she peered down further and the more she stared the more she was convinced that there was a light coming towards her. Pausing, she trained her ears to hear the soft noises that were following the floating light.

“What did I tell you?” She heard a chillingly familiar voice say in the distance. “These tunnels have been abandoned for centuries, back in the old days they connected the three schools and were used in emergencies.” Icy sounded pleased with herself as she gestured with the torch she was holding, the pinpoint of light illuminating the rough tunnel wall for a second.

“The entrance to Alfea should be any minute now.” Was that Darcy? It sounded like the woman in purple who had attacked her in Magix.

“Thank god.” Stormy too. All three of them were here. Bloom willed her feet to move and retreat, but she stayed still for a few moments longer. “Now all there is to do is curse the gifts and move on.” Curse? Bloom backed out of the cupboard as quickly as she could, scissors in hand, and closed the door behind her. She made a desperate sprint to a pillar and hid behind it to wait.

Sure enough, a minute or two later the door opened again and the three witches came out. They were dressed up more than they had been when they’d met before, with more dramatic eye makeup that Bloom, on the cusp of going to a formal party, envied greatly.

“The gifts are usually stored close to the Great Hall,” Darcy said. “Look for something with the Red Fountain crest on it.”

“Let the fun begin,” Icy snickered and went to push open a door on the t-junction of the corridors that led towards the function room. The lights from the beginnings of the party lit up half of the hall and the witches tried to sink into the shadow of the doorway. Stormy went in while the other two kept a lookout. Bloom held her breath, praying that they wouldn’t see her in the dark. 

“Would you look at that? I wonder what the simpletons are giving the loser fairies.” Stormy hissed loudly to the others. “Ah, they’re little eggs that spray out enchanted little butterflies.

“Whatever the gifts were supposed to be, the Snakerats will wreak havoc and spread panic. Go quicker, Stormy, we have to get the ring before the chaos spills out of the castle. Darcy, show us where it is.”

“With pleasure.” A purple cloud emanated from her and an apparition of Stella’s ring box hovered in front of them for a few moments. Bloom wrapped her hand over her mouth so that they wouldn’t hear her gasp.

“Good,” Icy nodded. “She’s not wearing it so it’ll be easier. If you’re done, we’ll go and wait for the right moment.”

They closed the door behind them and quickly moved back towards the exit to the gardens and ducked out. Breathing heavily, Bloom raced to the room the witches had just been in and stared at the chest. There was nothing she could do to fix what had happened so the only thing to do was get an adult.

She was already by the side entrance to the party and the mingling was just beginning. Where were all the teachers? She couldn’t see Faragonda or Griselda or anyone who wasn’t a student. She walked quickly, trying not to attract any attention to herself, especially since she wasn’t dressed up yet. Seriously, the one time she wanted there to be chaperones…

“Hey,” she felt a tap on her shoulder and she jumped. “Sorry.” Brandon laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of his head. His uniform pulled over his chest when he moved and Bloom had to consciously stop herself from staring.

“Hey, Brandon,” she smiled back, looking around, no time for gawking. Still no grown ups, but Stella was with the other three girls and they were better than no one. 

“Would you like to dance?”

“Yes!” she said, more of her enthusiasm coming out than she had intended. Stella saw her and waved before making a confused gesture at the fact Bloom was still in her normal clothes. 

“Ah,” Bloom made a beeline for them, leaving a confused Brandon in her wake.

“What’s up?” Stella asked. “Why aren’t you dressed yet?”

“I saw the three witches, they cursed the gifts from Red Fountain!”

“What?” Tecna looked confused.

“The prank!” Flora clapped her hands to her mouth.

“Yeah, and they’re using it as a distraction to steal your ring, Stella.”

“Hang on.” Musa grabbed a wrist each from Stella and Bloom, the other two following close behind as they were all led out of the Great Hall. “That’s better. Now we can talk, Bloom, what happened?”

Bloom attempted to give a thorough and concise explanation about the witches and the prank and the snakerats and the ring. Tecna busied herself on her phone while Flora and Musa thought hard for a second.

“Snakerats are venomous, swamp-dwelling rodents whose diet consists mostly of toads. They are incredibly aggressive and snakerat bites are known to induce vomiting and diarrhoea within fifteen minutes.”

“Urgh,” Stella looked repulsed. “Slimy, disgusting and poisonous, just like the witches.”

“It’s all to cause a distraction so they can grab your ring, they know where you put it!” Bloom insisted.

“We’ve gotta stop the eggs from being handed out,” Musa said, staring back into the party. There were at least 400 people in that room and once the eggs started hatching there would be bites and then fifteen minutes after that the whole place would be drowning in sick.

“Oh, no!” Flora gaped. “It’s too late! Look!”

Two of the guys, dressed in their military uniform, were carrying the heavy chest into the centre of the room as the Alfea girls flocked around them. There was a polite shuffle as each girl tried to be first in line without looking too pushy.

“We need a counter spell,” Stella said. “And fast. Oh god, I really wish I’d paid more attention last year.”

“Form a circle?” Flora suggested and the princess nodded, seizing Musa and Tecna’s hands. Bloom put down the scissors she was still holding so that she could join in.

“Alright, it’s a reasonably simple spell to make an egg into a different egg so let’s try the basics, I know we should be able to do it. Repeat after me; what it once was, let it be again.”

“What it once was, let it be again. What it once was, let it be again.” Bloom scrunched up her face and concentrated, hoping that this would be enough. They stopped when Stella did and all peered back into the hall, watching as two girls (who Bloom was pretty sure were called Selene and Silicya) opened the eggs.

There was a moment where all five of them held their breaths before both eggs cracked open and a cloud of bright yellow butterflies flew out and danced in the air before the girls. There were ‘coos’ and ‘wows’ from the audience before the other started pushing for theirs.

“Oh thank god,” Stella sighed, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand to get rid of fake perspiration.

“Okay, we’ll sort out protecting the ring,” Flora said, touching Bloom’s shoulder. “You run along and get dressed. You don’t want to miss any more of the party.”

Bloom took her scissors and made her way back upstairs as quickly as she could. She freed her skirt from the sewing machine and was just about to take her jeans off when she saw something come flying out of Stella’s room.

Her jewellery box lay open on her floor, as if it had been pulled off her vanity, and the ring box went soaring out of the open window in the common room. Without much thought, Bloom tore off after it, climbing down the balcony and awkwardly slipping down the ivy to the ground. It was more of a controlled fall than anything else, with the topiary cushioning her landing.

There wasn’t much time to recover from the drop as the box was still making its way towards the edge of the campus at quite a pace. Bloom started running, the grass damp under her bare feet, and launched herself at the ring as soon as she was within distance. She caught the thing and hugged it close to her chest as she fell to the ground, jarring her knee. Still, she had stopped Stella forming being robbed of her royal heirloom.

Awkwardly, and trying to get her knee to not click when she moved, Bloom hobbled back towards her room only to discover she had no idea how she was going to climb back up. Maybe going back around and finding a door was the best option right now.

“You think you’re hot shit, don’t you?” Bloom froze, Icy was behind her, and she was sure that the other two would be close by. “Your friends aren’t here to bail you out this time.”

Bloom turned in time to see the ice coming towards her and only barely managed to leap out of the way before it stuck to her again. She landed hard on her backside before strong winds slammed her into a bush. Stella’s ring box flew out of her hands and Darcy caught it with one hand, slipping it into her pocket.

“If that’s all…” Icy laughed at her and the three of them turned to walk away.

This couldn’t happen. The witches couldn’t just leave with a magical ring, something of Stella’s that was precious to her, not while Bloom was still here. She could feel that same heat that had coursed through her veins when she’d seen Stella attacked and this time she didn’t let it surprise or overwhelm her. Bloom took control of it and pushed everything she had to the surface.

Fire burst out from her and she could feel herself wrapped in its warmth. And wings, she had wings too, just like the other girls when they’d transformed. This was her fairy form and she was going to use it.

“I’m a real fairy now,” Bloom yelled. A beam of fire shooting from her and towards the three witches. “I’ve levelled the playing field.”

Icy and Stormy were able to doge out of the way of the flames but Darcy had to summon a cloak of that purple aura to keep her from being burnt. Icy sneered at Bloom.

“You think just because you have a glittery outfit that you are any kind of match for us?” Icy swept her cloak back and shards of ice flew out, Bloom only just managing to avoid getting skewered. 

Her wings vibrated as if to suggest that she should fly, but there wasn’t time to consider that before Darcy let out a stream of purple energy that flew towards her face. Bloom hit the ground as the light went sailing over her head.

Scrambling up, Bloom struggled to stay balanced. The ground was moving and warping before her eyes, it felt like she’d just been spun around and told to run. If their previous fight was anything to go by, she needed to prepare for all three to attack her at once and for maybe the ogre to make an appearance. But first, she needed to get rid of the vertigo.

Bloom made another attempt to stand upright. The three witches laughing as she struggled, and as she lurched about, her wings started to vibrate. They didn’t feel like they were truly part of her, not like they were a third pair of limbs, more ghostly and with much less feeling than she expected.

It was a surprise, then, when she felt her body lift off the ground. Her feet dangled in the air as her wings pulled her into flight. The further she was pulled up, the less that she felt the effects of the spell. Her vision was clearing and nothing was moving that shouldn’t.

On the ground, Icy laughed as Darcy looked frustrated. Although Bloom’s inexperience made her feel like she was miles into the air, she was only actually a couple of meters high and she could still see each of their facial expressions clearly and hear what they said.

“Problem, Darcy?” Icy smirked.

Without giving her friend a chance to respond, Icy unfurled her cloak from her arm and let out a barrage of icicles at the fairy. Bloom dived out of the way, travelling further than she had expected thanks to her wings. She landed uncomfortably, but unscathed, into a patch of well groomed bushes and she felt that fire that had ignited her fairy form fade out and she was left lying in the dirt.

By the time she’d scrambled out, the witches were gone and with them Stella’s ring box.


	8. The Weirdest Group Date Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It still counts as Tuesday if I post it before I go to sleep, right?

Bloom stared up at the ceiling of her dorm room. There weren’t any reflective stars above her to contemplate but she was occupied enough with the events of that night not to miss the glow-in-the-dark stickers.

She had been found by Flora shortly after she returned to their room, cold, battered and still shaking off mud. The others had become worried when she still wasn’t at the party and sent a volunteer to find her. 

Bloom looked a sight. Her makeup was still in place and un-smudged but her hair had been trashed by the fight, the flying, and the bushes and the first thing Flora did, before saying anything, was to pull a twig out of Bloom’s bra strap.

Bloom explained as best as she could what happened as Flora guided her towards the sofa and took out all the pins Stella had put in. She couldn’t salvage the updo so just ran her fingers through Bloom’s hair so it could be styled into loose waves before Flora helped her get into her outfit. 

“I lost the ring box,” Bloom said gloomily as they tied her sleeves as fast as they could. “So now Stella has to tell her dad what happened. I’m so sorry, I need to tell her that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Flora laughed. “I told you we’d handle it, and that substitution spells are quite simple.”

“Huh?”

“After you left we swapped out the ring for something else. The witches might have the box but they don’t have the sceptre.”

Bloom felt like fainting in relief that she hadn’t actually let a priceless heirloom slip through her fingers. She’d been so scared that she’d let Stella down after everything the princess had done for her. She finished getting ready with Flora’s help and they arrived in time to catch the photographer before he packed up. People were only just starting to take their seats at the banquet table so 

Flora was able to persuade her that there was no rush and to take a few photos together first. They had a few done with just the two of them before Stella realised Bloom had arrived and escaped her conversation to join them.

Bloom was grinning as Stella cuddled up to her for the pictures and pulled Flora in on the other side. The photographer had clearly had the run around with the princess before and had decided to capitulate to her demands rather than protest.

“Brandon!” Stella called, waving at the guy as he passed the photo set up. “Come take a picture with us!”

Bloom blushed hard when the other two girls arranged themselves so that Bloom and Brandon were pushed together. He paused for a second before putting his arm around her shoulder. Her skin burn where he touched her. After that, she’d been pulled to a seat on a bench with the rest of their suite and the other three boys that Bloom had met on Earth.

Stella made sure that she was next to Prince Sky and Bloom was with Brandon. Tecna took it upon herself to sit between Timmy and Riven while Flora placed herself such that Musa had to scoot up the bench to be on Riven’s other side.

Musa was uncharacteristically quiet during the dinner and pink would rise in her cheeks whenever her proximity to Riven caused them to brush up against each other. He sat mostly silently at the table too, looking pointedly away from Tecna. Bloom had awkwardly made eye contact with him a few times, cowering a little under his hard gaze. She could see why Musa found him so attractive: he had high cheekbones and beautiful eyes, a flattering haircut too, but his attitude was just so dark. It made Bloom shift awkwardly.

Over the course of the dinner the girls were told what happened to the troll that they caught outside of Bloom’s house in great detail. Sky had needed to fudge the paperwork of how exactly they had come across the creature for the purpose of dealing with it properly once they returned to Red Fountain but in return they had received a good deal of credit for capturing it. Enough that Riven didn’t bother to correct the prince on some of the finer details of the event. 

Brandon stayed by her side throughout dinner though, which made her blush repeatedly, and they had organised for a meet up between the girls and the guys the following weekend.

Once the dinner was finished Musa left to attend to her musical responsibilities and the dancing started back up. Sky swept Stella away as Flora dragged Tecna onto the dance floor. Bloom thought she spotted Riven hanging out next to Musa’s station but he didn’t seem to stay there long.

“If I ask you to dance now, you won’t run off again, will you?” Brandon laughed awkwardly.

“N-no,” Bloom said.

She considered telling him about the witches and their attempt to steal Stella’s ring while they danced together, Brandon’s hand on the small of her back making butterflies erupt in her stomach. But since no one else had mentioned it (and Bloom knew it was the princess’ express wish to keep it quiet) she didn’t share the reason for her late arrival.

Now in bed, Bloom rolled onto her side in bed in a vain attempt to fall asleep. She could just about make out Flora’s silhouette on the other side of the room. She’d had a good time with Brandon, they’d danced together a lot - either as a group with the other girls and their partners, or just the two of them - and she hoped that, even if nothing romantic came of their flirtatious interactions, that they could still be friends.

They’d been forcibly dispersed by the staff just after midnight but Stella had been too excited by the night’s events to shut up and go to bed. The girls had spent the next few hours talking in their common room before Flora finally, gently but firmly, chivied the other four to bed. And now here Bloom was, trying not to let her brain run away with her.

They had orientations in the morning and she needed some sleep before then. She had pretty much memorised the itinerary for the next day: breakfast at eight-thirty; Faragonda’s address at nine-thirty; and then their first class at ten with Professor Wizgiz.

It seemed like Bloom had only just drifted off before she was woken up by the alarm. Groggily, she dragged herself out of bed to get dressed and ready for the first real day of magic school. The others in her dorm weren’t faring too well. Musa and Tecna had stayed up even later together in their room and were suffering through breakfast.

Stella was the first one to perk up, probably something to do with the sunlight saturating the Great Hall and the coffee that she put away with vigour. Bloom found her second wind with the help of a doughnut and a large sugary latte.

Faragonda stood up to speak to them when the students were all finished with their meal. It wasn’t anything unusual, she wished them well in their new year at school, she hoped that they would make use of all the opportunities at their feet, and she made clear that they were not to rise to any antagonism from the Cloud Tower witches. Stella pointedly looked at Bloom after that last bit, causing the rest of their table, not just the other three, to stare at her too.

After they sang the school song they were released to their classes. Bloom checked her timetable to remind herself that it was ‘Metamorphosis’ and on the second floor.

Professor Wizgiz was a short man with yellow skin and long brown ringlets falling from beneath his wide hat. He had arranged assigned seating already so Bloom went in to find her name somewhere in the middle down the front. Stella gave her a thumbs up from the other side of the room. She had said that Wizgiz aways pulled a stunt at the start of the year and so Bloom kept her eye on him as she got out her textbook and fresh paper.

“Welcome everyone, once again in behooves me to kick off the new year. Now, for those of you who haven’t met me yet, I am Professor Wizgiz and I am a leprechaun. We will never speak of that again. I am your teacher of Metamorphosis, or as I prefer,” the small man put a finger between his lips and yanked at the corner of his mouth. “The art of changing the way you look!” As he pulled his finger back out, his face and voice shifted into that of Griselda.

The class laughed, and a few of them clapped as the Deputy Headmistress sat on the leprechaun’s desk, bouncing one leg over her knee. He let out a small yelp as he returned to his natural form.

“I have high expectations of each of you come the end of the year, and since every ending must have a beginning let us start with a simple practical so I can assess your current level,” Wizgiz waved his hand and little mirrors rose up in front of each girl. “Look in the mirror, look at yourself and think about changing the colour of your hair.”

Bloom did as instructed but nothing happened. For her, in seemed, just thinking wasn’t enough. Looking around as covertly as she could, Bloom saw Musa with brightly coloured purple hair, Flora with red, and Tecna had become blonde. Stella was still preening herself in the mirror when Bloom caught her eye, but eventually even she focused and her hair went black from root to tip. Awkwardly, Bloom shifted in her seat and stared at her reflection.

Do something, she willed her hair. Change even one tone, please. But her begging did nothing. Wizgiz made the rounds of the classroom, noting everyone’s progress first to give her more time, before he finally stopped at her desk.

“Don’t worry Bloom, this isn’t a pass-fail exercise. You’ll get there eventually.”

He returned to the front of the class and smiled at them all.

“Thank you for that, all of you, now we’ll get underway with the theory side of things. You’ll need your textbooks out and because they’re written by bureaucrats and not teachers, we’re starting at chapter three.”

Bloom was glad she could follow the professor as he took them through the basics on the blackboard. He went fast enough to keep things interesting while keeping pace with those taking notes.

After Metamorphosis was Professor Palladium’s Botany class which was a precursor to the Potions Lab course that would be starting next term after the winter break. Palladium was an elf who stumbled over his words and struggled to keep the attention of the class. Bloom wondered how he had stayed employed at such a prestigious school as she doodled on her notes.

Supposedly they had a big practical next week but the conversation had devolved into what had happened last night with the Red Fountain boys. Bloom edged her doodles with stars and hearts; she’d finished taking down the notes that were on the board and now there was nothing for her to do but wait for Palladium to move on.

She was also aware that Amaryl was on her right and occasionally giving her the side eye. She hoped that she wouldn’t be sat too close to Stella’s rival for any of her other classes since the girl’s hard glare made her shift uncomfortably in her seat.

After Botany was Maths, and then Magix History. Bloom had been studying a different algebraic topic back in Gardenia but Professor Marina was gentle in her introduction to differential calculus and only set a small amount of homework. Magix History, however, was something Bloom found much more interesting and the lesson’s subject of the formation of the Magix government even prompted her to both answer and ask several questions.

Then they were sent to lunch before their afternoon of sport started. The whole day moved a lot faster than Bloom had been anticipating and she was already in her gym clothes warming up before she could really take stock of everything that had happened.

They played a rather tame volleyball tournament after doing some stretches and a short run, with each suite acting as a team. While Bloom had never been great at physical exercise she found it easy to get into playing with these particular team mates. Tecna was surprisingly fast for someone whose preferred hobby was sitting in front of a computer (or, more likely, several computers) for hours at a time and had a set of abs that shocked Bloom. Then there was Musa who played volleyball with the kind of ferocity that made it seem like her life depended on the score. Bloom wondered if her competitiveness and talent was why she’d been paired with Riven during the summer sport pre-season. 

Flora and Stella were pretty useless though. Flora was too scared to hit the ball hard enough to get it over the net with any kind of force and flinched whenever it flew towards her, whereas Stella simply wasn’t interested in putting in effort. She whined when called upon to move at any speed greater than a walk and complained about the possibility of ruining her manicure or sweating too much.

The only time she started to take it seriously was when they came up against the Wands: which was Amaryl’s suite. As soon as Stella saw who they were playing against next she was up at the front and trying as hard as she could to spike the ball right into the other girl’s face. It didn’t help that Amaryl’s prime skill at sport was the smack talking. Thankfully she managed to avoid either goading them too far or receiving a black eye and Stella’s sudden enthusiasm led them to draw the match.

“Ha-ha!” Stella gloated when the teacher called time. “Looks like you’re all talk and left feet.”

“Oh shut up, Stella, you didn’t even win. Go back to your silly Winx.”

“My silly what?” 

“Winx, that thing Bloom keeps drawing in class.” 

Bloom looked between the other two girls confused. ‘Winx’? She didn’t remember writing or drawing anything of the sort, what was Amaryl talking about? The only thing that she’d really been doodling was… oh.

Stella paused for a moment and then burst out laughing, bent double, belly clutching laughing. She managed to regain her composure enough to get some words out. Bloom thought she was laying it on a bit thick.

“I can’t believe you accused her of being illiterate when you can’t read the word ‘wings’, she was writing ‘wings’ you dumb shit. You know, the name of our suite.”

“Language,” Mrs Welch said lazily from the sidelines, idly playing with the plastic whistle on her lanyard.

“N-no, she wrote ‘winx’…” Amaryl was trying to sound firm but Bloom could tell her certainty was wavering. “

“That’s not even a real word! What would it even refer to?”

“You! You’re winx!” From her face, Amaryl looked like she was trying to insult Stella but the princess was having a hard time not laughing over the nonsense word.

“We’re the winx?” Tecna asked as Musa tried not to completely lose it behind her. Amaryl flushed red and turned her head in a huff.

“Don’t say it like that it was Bloom who…”

Bloom was saved from the continuing argument by a small purple-haired woman clutching a diary and a stack of papers approaching the volleyball courts, with a request from Faragonda for Bloom to come to her office as soon as she was available. Mrs Welch excused her.

Even though Faragonda’s secretary assured her there was time to shower and change if she wanted to, Bloom was too anxious to keep the headmistress waiting. She regretted her decision as soon as the cool air-conditioning inside caused her sweat to start drying in tacky patches between her skin and gym clothes. Her thighs were soon sticking together when she walked. 

Once again the doors opened for her as soon as she knocked and she went in trying not to look as nervous as she felt. Faragonda smiled as soon as she saw her and the old woman got up from her desk to give her a brief hug. Bloom cringed inwardly as she hoped she didn’t stink.

“You wanted to see me?” she said.

“Yes, I just wanted to check in and see how you are doing on your first day and to return something very important to you.” Faragonda let go of her, not saying if she had felt how sticky her charge was.

Bloom looked around confused for a moment before Faragonda produced a carry case from behind her desk and opened the front so that Kiko could charge out to his mistress’ feet. He started pawing at her leg immediately in a plea to get her to pick him up which she indulged, letting him get a few licks of her face in before she pulled him down towards her chest.

“Kiko!” She said, laughing as he squirmed to try and reach her face again. “Did you miss me?”

“I’m glad you two can be reunited again. I should remind you that he is your responsibility while he’s here, so you will need to sort out his food and exercise,” Faragonda said and Bloom nodded. 

“There’s a vet in Magix that can do his check ups too.”

“Yeah, I’ll take him soon. Thanks.” Kiko rolled over in her arms to present his belly to her for scritches.

“Good idea. Now, how did you find your classes?”

Bloom was vague in her descriptions of how her academia was going since she was embarrassed by her lack of aptitude in Metamorphosis and didn’t want to criticise Palladium too much. Faragonda raised her eyebrows when she mentioned what happened at the volleyball between Stella and Amaryl but didn’t comment.

Bloom rejoined her friends in time to eat an early dinner with them before settling down to do her homework. She was able to get a hand from Musa with her Magix History and Tecna went through Bloom and everyone else’s Maths homework. Once she’d finished with those she settled into her room with Stella’s hand mirror and begged the princess to help her try and change her hair colour.

“Okay, let’s try again,” Stella said, slouching in Bloom’s desk chair. “Look in the mirror, keep that image in your mind and then close your eyes.” Bloom did as she was told, screwing up her face.

“Yeah?”

“Now think about how your hair looks in that image.” Copper, that was what her mum always described it as. Her hair was copper. “Now, starting at your roots and working down to your ends, picture a new colour taking hold.”

Bloom’s mind was suddenly filled with the image of her father’s old Farrah Fawcett poster, her famous 80s hair do with the fringe-flicks, and chose the colour of her hair to picture. Kind of a blonde-brown colour.

She squinted one eye open and swore.

“Look what happened?” Bloom pointed dramatically at her now cowslicked bangs.

“Urgh,” Stella groaned. “You’re not concentrating properly!”

“I don’t understand,” she snapped.

“Hey now,” Flora looked up from her phone. “Don’t stress over it: Bloom, you’re going to get it eventually, it’s only the first day of school and you’ve managed to do something even if it wasn’t the original intention. And Stella’s working really hard, well done.”

The princess’ face softened and she went to sit on the bed next to Bloom, putting an arm around her shoulders and briefly burying her face in her neck.

“You’ll get it, it’s only the first day of school, like Flora said. Now, any chance we can talk about meeting up with the boys?”

The five of them did indeed go into Magix to meet up with the boys at an ice cream bar. Musa hid behind Flora while they waited in line to order, as if concerned that she might burst into flames if Riven caught her eye, and Bloom watched with a good deal of amusement as Stella tried to wedge her way between the prince and his bodyguard.

To his credit, Brandon tried to allow her enough room to grab onto Sky’s arm but she kept trying to pull him far enough away to have a private conversation. Bloom looked sympathetically at both men: neither of them had been fully prepared for Stella’s flirtations.

They ate their ice creams outside under a parasol; Stella still wedged between her target and his bodyguard and Bloom on Brandon’s other side. Tecna had taken it upon herself to physically shield Timmy from Riven and had her back turned to him while she discussed something computer-y with Timmy. Once again, Bloom found herself making awkward eye contact with Riven. She was shoved up against him since the table really wasn’t meant to sit nine and her shoulder kept connecting with his chest.

To Stella’s dismay, Sky got into an in-depth discussion with Flora about a particular film series from Linphea which kept him busy for most of their excursion. It was an enjoyable Saturday afternoon even if Bloom didn’t get to talk to Brandon all that much since his attention was divided.

They said goodbye when the shuttle to Alfea arrived, Musa waving timidly in Riven’s direction, Tecna and Timmy exchanging forum usernames, and Stella shamelessly trying to persuade Sky to come back with her.

She was unsuccessful in her attempt to abscond with the prince but was rewarded with an intense kiss that made Bloom awkwardly look away in an effort to give them some sort of privacy. Sky was holding onto the back of her head passionately as Stella pressed herself up against him. Brandon had to force a cough and tap roughly on the prince’s shoulder to get them to stop so Flora could corral Stella onto the bus.

“I guess you like Sky then, huh?” Musa snorted.

“Normally I’d warn you about people in glass houses throwing stones: cough, cough, Riven, but I’m far too happy to be that petty.” Stella grinned and flipped her hair over her shoulder. She winked as Musa flushed a deep scarlet before carrying on. “He’s a really great kisser though. Bit my lip a little bit.”

The rest of them got a blow-by-blow of the kiss that they had just witnessed but since Stella was clearly so happy about it they indulged her reliving of it. Bloom was pretty sure that Tecna had zoned out within the first few minutes as her normally blank face was extra vacant as she stared somewhere just left of Stella’s head. The princess didn’t seem to notice or, if she did, she didn’t care. 

When they settled down for the night, Bloom could still hear Stella singing softly to herself from across the suite in her room as she got ready for bed.


	9. The Weirdest Field Trip Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy your update folks, it's a long one.  
> For various reasons my personal life has got hella busy recently (not bad, no one worry, just busy) so I'm taking next week off writing to deal with some stuff and take some 'me' time. Normal service will resume the week after on 27th/28th. Since this one is over 6200 words, it's almost twice the length of some of my other chapters so, if you think about it, I'm not really shortchanging you.  
> Also, I had a 'guest' proofreader for this one so if there are any mistakes... we're blaming him.

There was mud everywhere, and it was gritty. They’d barely got off the class’ shuttle and walked a hundred yards before their boots were caked in it.  
Professor Palladium stood in front of his class, yellow hip waders firmly attached to the belt of his corduroy trousers, tapping his pen against his clipboard in a vain attempt to get everyone’s attention.

The practical test was a deeply unpopular tradition for the first years that everyone who’d been through it spoke of with disgust. It took a whole day to complete and it was worth a significant portion of the grade for their class. Every girl gathered at the entrance to the Blackwood Swamp Nature Reserve was kitted out in unflattering overalls, hats, and heavy waterproof boots. Griselda had vigorously checked that they were in their regulation field trip uniform and had handed over any and all phones before they were escorted onto the bus.

Stella, however, had wasted no time in rolling the top half of the hideous beige jumpsuit and tying the arms around her waist. Bloom had watched with amusement as she arranged the tank top so that it showed off the laced edge of her bra. Musa rolled her eyes at her friend but had also unbuttoned the front of her overalls and pushed the sleeves up too. Looking around at the other girls Bloom was pretty sure that only herself and Flora still looked the same as when Griselda had inspected them. Amaryl and her group of friends had pretty much taken the whole uniform off.

“Alright, everybody!” Palladium called. “I need to remind you of the rules for this exercise!”

“Urgh,” Stella moaned under her breath. “I can’t believe he’s really an elf, they’re supposed to be so graceful and gorgeous… what happened here?”

“I doubt he’s been through Chrysalis,” Tecna muttered back. “I dunno, how old is he?”

“Professor!” Eleanor squealed, capturing the class’ attention in a way Palladium could only dream of. “A mosquito just bit me!”

“Yes, well, we are near a swamp and it is only a mosquito…”

“But look where it bit me!” Dramatically, Eleanor pulled the waist band of both her overalls and shorts down passed her hip bone to show the offending bite. Palladium let out a strangled yelp and quickly averted his gaze.

“Eleanor, that’s not appropriate. Put your clothes back on now please.”

Once everyone was decent again and the laughter had stopped, the professor’s face slowly went back to his original complexion and he got them all to group up in their suites.

“A good fairy must be able to listen to what her intuition tells her. Today’s exercise is designed to put your instinct to the test by having you rely on the essence of nature to guide you. In your groups you have eight hours to get to the other side of Blackwood Swamp and reach the clearing by Gloomiwood Forest without using magic. Remember, listen carefully to The Voice of Nature and follow its advice. You all have flares for if you get into serious trouble but other than that, I’ll see you at the finish line.”

With a puff of yellow light, Palladium disappeared and the girls were set loose on the nature reserve.

“Alright, Flora,” Stella stretched dramatically as they trailed in after their classmates. “You’re up. This is your thing? Get us out of here.”

“Oh come on, Stella.” Musa rolled her eyes. “We all have to try, the only reason we’re in groups is because it would be too much of a risk for us to do it individually.”

“That and because we’d group up anyway,” Tecna added, looking around at their grimey surroundings and grimacing. “Flora? Anything?”

“Hmm… this way has a good feeling?”

Neither Stella or Tecna were very convinced by her tone, but since they had nothing else to go on they followed their friend. The ground was uneven with patches of hard stone interspersed with wet bog and sticky mud that clung to their shoes and trouser leg. Bloom was able to tune Stella’s whining out as they headed further into the wilderness.

Eventually they reached a small track at the bottom of a hill and Flora stopped, looking around trying to decide whether to follow the path towards the perimeter of the reservation or to head towards the trees.

“Where now?” Musa asked when they all came to a halt next to Flora.

“I’m not sure…”

“What does The Voice of nature sound like?” Stella asked as they waited. Bloom stared off into the distance at the tangled forest and let her mind go blank for a moment. There was a definite pull in that direction. Not really a ‘voice’ as such as much as it was a strong feeling that this was right.

“It isn’t like there’s actually person speaking,” Bloom said as she started moving. “Just an instinct. Like Palladium said.”

“Is it this way?” Tecna asked, following Bloom quickly. “This would be so much easier with my phone. GPS is much more reliable than any weird feeling.”

“Remember, no magic and no tech,” Flora reminded her as they walked.

Tecna kept grumbling as they entered the small woods. She wasn’t used to being off the grid to this extent; they had Palladium put a temporary block on her internet receiver in her cybernetics too so that she didn’t have an unfair advantage.

Musa was pretending to listen when she spotted something in the air high above them. She waved her hand close to her roommate’s face to shut her up.

“Isn’t that a Red Fountain ship?” She asked, pointing at what she saw. It was the right shape and colour but it was spewing black smoke as its altitude dropped.

“Yeah… and it’s coming for an emergency landing!” Tecna started running in the direction of where it was headed, the others following shortly behind her.

Bloom had not been expecting to have to move any faster than a walk on this trip and was huffing and puffing by the time she brought the rear up at the clearing where the giant red ship was half-sunk into the mud.

The five of them watched in horror, frozen in place for a second, as Riven and Sky dragged Timmy out from the smashed windscreen and Brandon readied a medical kit a little way away. Stella was the first one to act, flicking the back of Musa and Tecna’s heads (since they were closest) to snap them out of it.

“Hey!” She yelled. “What happened?”

Bloom was always surprised at what Stella was capable of when she put in the effort. The princess moved quickly through the boggy mud as if she hadn’t been complaining about the dirt for the past twenty minutes. She seized one of Timmy’s legs off a disgruntled Riven and helped haul him over to more solid ground and Brandon.

“Engine malfunctioned,” Riven snapped as he held Timmy’s head up so that they could clean up a large gash on his temple. “Had to do an emergency landing.”

“Are you sure?” Tecna asked from across the clearing next to the ship.

“Yeah, Timmy’s an excellent pilot,” Sky said as he held the skin on Timmy’s forehead together so it could be stapled. Bloom didn’t know what to do; the boys seemed to be handling things as if it were a drill and none of them were panicking but Bloom was worrying that Timmy didn’t seem to be conscious.

Tecna’s brow was furrowed as she inspected the ship carefully, much to Riven’s irritation, and slowly walked around the whole thing. He was about to say something to his old classmate when Brandon jammed a needle into Timmy’s arm bringing him back to consciousness.

“How you doing, buddy?” Sky asked, helping the boy sit up.

“I’m okay, I’m okay… the ship just started to tank. Is everyone else alright?”

Timmy was reassured that no one else had been injured in the crash. The safety protocols had worked but for shrapnel from the windscreen that had hit their pilot in the head. The ship, however, was beyond repair.

“Specialists?” Tecna called from the other side of the partially submerged ship. She didn’t wait for a response before she continued. “What was in the cargo bay?”

“What do you mean ‘was’?” Sky asked.

“There is a massive hole in the side of your ship and a pair of cuffs that have been discarded. What were you transporting?” Bloom wasn’t sure she had ever seen Tecna actually mad or worried before and she wasn’t liking the new experience.

“The Hunter Troll we captured,” Brandon answered.

“You were moving a troll and you let it escape?!” 

“I didn’t let anything escape,” Riven told her. “There was an accident. We had to perform ab emergency landing. That’s all there is to it, we’ll find him again no problem.”

“If anyone finds out we lost that troll we are so fucked,” Sky said, his face dropping as he realised.

“What are you guys doing here?” Brandon attempted to ease the tension by addressing Bloom. She tried hard not to go as red as a tomato.

“We’re on a class assignment,” she replied before Stella draped herself over Bloom’s shoulder and grinned at him.

“The same one every year, got to get through Blackmud Swamp without magic or tech. Still don’t know why I’m not allowed to use my score from last year though, then I could just get out of here…” Stella winked at Sky who, to his credit, managed to maintain a straight face. Bloom looked at her shoes, she’d seen the texts that those two had exchanged and she had been scandalised. Not just by the explicit content but by the fact that Stella had so readily thrust them in front of her for opinions and advice. Both of which Bloom did not feel qualified to provide.

“Then get back to your assignment and let the specialists handle it.” Riven had his arms crossed over his chest and was frowning hard. At the edge of their huddle, Musa’s face fell but he didn’t notice.

“The specialists are going to be here?!” Stella gasped in mock delight. “When?!”

For a second Bloom seriously thought that Riven was going to hit her from the look on his face and his stance, but he reigned himself in. Stella did her best not to look intimidated by him.

“They’re here you stupid little girl…”

“What Riven means,” Sky cut him off, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Is that there’s no reason for you to flunk your assignment just to help us out. We’ll manage.”

“I don’t need your fucking editorial comments, Your Highness.” Riven shrugged out of his hold and went to retrieve a bag from the cockpit before hauling it away. “We need to set up the distress beacon and get Timmy somewhere less filthy.” He called back at them.

Brandon shrugged, pulling on Sky’s arm until he relented and they helped Timmy up so they could follow Riven. Brandon turned awkwardly to wave over his shoulder at Bloom.

“Does any of this seem suspicious to anyone else?” Tecna asked once the boys were out of earshot. “Those handcuffs were psychic locked.”

“Look here,” Musa beckoned. “I’ve found its footprints. Heading away from the ship and into the woods.”

“Are we really doing this?” Stella had her arms crossed, as of she was mimicking Riven. “I’ve met that troll, he’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Yeah, and the boys don’t want our help,” Flora added. She had stayed quiet throughout the whole exchange, mostly not making eye contact with anyone.

“You’d leave a Hunter Troll to prowl around the reservation filled with our classmates who are not expecting to use magic?” There was silence as Tecna’s words sunk in. Stella shook her head with incredulity but didn’t add anything. 

Since no one was going to stop her, Musa got closer to the footprints in the mud, crouching down to inspect them closer. She waved the others over and pointed at the marks left behind.

“What do you notice about these?” She asked.

“The troll must have a real hard time finding shoes in his size?” Stella suggested. “His feet are huge!”

“And yet somehow they’re making less of an imprint as they go on despite the ground being just as wet.” They all looked at each other as they realised what Musa was saying.

“It’s like the troll is on an ultra-sonic weight loss plan…”

“Or like the troll found a way to gradually achieve a state of weightlessness,” Musa continued as if Stella had made a real suggestion. Flora looked confused.

“That sounds like a flying spell.”

“Only trolls can’t cast spells,” Tecna pointed out. “And to get out of those handcuffs you need psychic powers, strong ones too, and that’s certainly not something a creature like a troll could pull off.”

“He had help.” Bloom had been looking between each of them as they worked things out, kind of amazed at how well they were working together and wishing that she could add something. She didn’t know about trolls or how magical restraints worked.

“Then we could be facing a powerful psychic user then,” Stella said. “Well, this seems like fun. Certainly more eventful than last year.”

Bloom closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on that feeling that had led her in this direction. Maybe The Voice would help guide her for this task as well as taking them to the finish point. It was harder than she’d hoped, maybe focusing on something as distressing as that blue monstrosity made it more difficult that the simple goal of lazily making it across a nature reserve, but she felt a little pull on her heart and it matched the way the footprints went.

“Let’s follow,” she said, taking a deep breath and starting to walk.

The footprints vanished entirely within a hundred feet before they were just using the instincts from Bloom and Flora to track the creature. Every so often, Tecna would look at the sky and sigh as she estimated how far off course they were, but they had a silent pact that no one was going to complain much about this.

“It’s so quiet here,” Musa whispered. “It’s like the swamp absorbs all the sounds.” She shuddered as she looked around. The terrain kept changing between bog, streams, sandy grass, and woods without seeming to make up its mind.

“I can’t hear any birds or insects,” Flora looked around at the trees that were starting to swallow them up. She was right; the background noises of cicadas and birdsong had vanished and now the only noise was their breathing and the squelching of the boots in mud.

As they went further into the forest the air became closer and Bloom could feel an intense sense of foreboding creeping up on her. She looked over at Musa who met her eye and shuddered.

“I’m getting like a sense of urgency in this direction,” Musa said. “Is this what The Voice of Nature feels like?”

“Yeah, kind of…” Bloom looked around at their darkening surrounding, feeling compelled to talk in a whisper.

“All this silence is spooky,” Stella said loudly, not affected by everyone else’s need to be quiet also. “I don’t like-”

“Shh!” Tecna held up her hand and the princess looked affronted. “Do you hear that? Up ahead, it sounds like screaming!”

They all strained to listen to what Tecna was talking about, Bloom considered that maybe the cybernetics enhanced her hearing too, when a scream echoed towards them. Flora clapped a hand over mouth in horror. It was faint, originating far away, and didn’t last long, but it was definitely a scream.

Bloom didn’t know which one of them started running first but it wasn’t long before all five of them had taken off in the direction of the noise. She struggled to stay upright on the uneven and soggy ground, between the lot of them there was a copious amount of mud flying around. None of them said anything, trying not to make any more noise than the squelching and sucking that came from their boots in the swamp.

Their overalls were no longer beige, more of a green and occasionally rust-brown from he mud and the clay in the swamp. Bloom could feel the burn of lactic acid starting to build in her calves as they walked up hill. She wasn’t in shape enough for this.

Musa made it to the stream first. The trees gave way to a small river, maybe only a few feet wide and no more than knee-deep, where willow trees and long, purple-red vines dipped into the water. She halted abruptly a bit before the water’s edge and looked back at her friends with a look of horror on her face.

“Wha… hmmpft!” Stella was quickly stifled by Flora’s hand clamping down over her mouth. Tecna held up a finger to lip and pointed to the brightly coloured creepers with her other hand.

“Are those what I think they are?” She asked in a very low voice. Flora nodded.

“Quietus Carnivorous,” she affirmed, also in a whisper. Bloom looked at her confused: what a stupid name for a plant. It sounded like someone was trying to make up latin… and then she realised. The polyglot spell was still in place so whatever they were really called had been translated, if poorly. “They’re carnivorous plants that can digest animals up to a horse in size. They sense their prey by the vibrations in the noises they make. I didn’t know there were any in this reservation.”

“Killer plants?” Stella hissed, having wiggled her head free of Flora’s grip. “You’re kidding me, right?” She looked between the two that seemed to know what was going on as if to demand a plan or a further explanation or something.

“And it’s got something that can scream,” Musa said, in a horrified whisper.

“It’s probably a large mammal,” Tecna reassured her. “A lot of deer and some small canines can sound disturbingly human when in pain.”

“HELP!”

There was another scream before the voice was muffled. Were they male or female? It was hard to tell with just the one word. Stella gave Tecna a withering look, who shrugged uncomfortably.

“There’s always room for error?”

They didn’t hang around to discuss anything else, all five of them moved through the water and to the other bank as carefully as possible. Bloom wasn’t sure what the difference between the vibrations of movement and the vibrations of talking were, but she wasn’t about to open her mouth to ask. Flora was the expert, and thankfully in the lead, while Musa and Tecna knew enough to be able to identify it. She would just do as they did.

Flora made her way through the thick brush, heading up hill and little way, until she stopped in the middle of a deep and watery part of the swamp, and pointed to a set of vines wrapped in concentric circles to form four pods. Stella shuddered when she caught up and stuck her tongue out while pretending to retch.  
Tecna nodded firmly and reached into her boot to pull out a knife. Stella stared at it before furiously mouthing:

“Why do you have a knife?”

“Why don’t you have a knife?!” She hissed back, waving her hand towards the four human-shaped pods “Case in point.”

“Oh, you must come across sooo many situations like this,” Stella seethed. Musa shushed them as she waded through the thin mud to pick up something from the grime. It was the handle of a Red Fountain sword.

Wordlessly, she turned the blade on (not something Bloom was expecting; it had looked broken to her but not it was just reminding her of the lightsabers from Star Wars) and looked at it’s magenta colour for a second before she went to start slashing vines. Tecna joined her, starting from the other side of the same pod with her knife.

The other three just looked on, silently and helplessly, as Timmy was slid out of the pod. Covered in a thin film of green goo. Stella retched again, although Bloom   
thought it might have been for real this time. She wanted to help them free the other specialists as Flora rubbed the princesses back, but she had nothing sharp enough to cut through the fibrous plants. All that there was to do was help prop a very disoriented Timmy upright so that he didn’t slide over onto his side and drown in the swamp.

Riven was next to be freed, his face surprisingly peaceful as he was extracted, and Bloom braced his slime covered back against her other side. She was thankful that her friends were working carefully with their blades, but when the third pod was revealed to be Sky and his skin had started to blister under the digestive acids she began panicking over Brandon. Flora shot her a sympathetic look as she helped a confused Timmy to his feet.

“Hush now,” Flora reminded the swaying boy. “No noises.”

Bloom slowly realised that Riven had been coming to for a while but had made neither a noise or a movement. She could only tell from the fact that he was holding his own head up now rather than leaning it on her. She decided against moving him or saying anything yet.

She let out an involuntary sigh of relief when Brandon was freed. He was blistered and bleeding from spots were his skin had broken, but he was breathing. Tecna rinsed him off in the muddy water and unceremoniously hauled him to his feet.

Sky wobbled over, ignoring Stella’s indignant hand gestures, and gripped his bodyguard in a hug. Brandon wrapped his arms around the prince’s shoulder seemingly rather out of muscle memory than comprehension but looked happy nonetheless.

Flora managed to chivvy them all out of the glade and away from the plants. When they were a far enough distance away from the vines to be able to talk freely Flora sighed loudly and asked how everyone was doing.

Riven immediately launched into an argument with Sky. Brandon had been trying to set up communications with Red Fountain when he’d been seized by the vines and wrapped up only for Sky to start shouting and try to free him at the expense of being trussed up too. Timmy held his head in his hands as his team mates yelled at each other.

“If you hadn’t been such an idiot, you wouldn’t have got caught too, Princeling. I thought you were supposed to prioritise your own safety?” Riven was in his face, squaring up to him.

“Excuse me for caring about my friends!”

“And caring means you forget everything about your training to keep them safe?”

“It was a normal reaction, Riven.” Brandon joined in, backing his friend up.

“Oh yeah? And what were you doing not checking the area for hazards? It’s the first thing we were taught!”

It continued for an uncomfortably long time as the girls just watched. Stella was glaring at the back of Riven’s head, Bloom noticed, as if trying to bore a hole straight into his brain while Musa shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot still holding onto his sword. Flora was looking anywhere but the conflict, looking’s if she wished the ground would swallow her up and Tecna was stood with her arms folded. Timmy was half-heartedly trying to engage her in a conversation but wasn’t getting anywhere with it despite her interest in the nanotechnology he was talking about.

“Enough!” Stella yelled. Her expression was dark enough that even Riven did a double take. “Get your act together, there’s a troll!”

Sky opened and closed his mouth before deciding that whatever he wanted to say wasn’t worth the wrath of the princess. Brandon looked at her apologetically before mouthing ‘sorry’ at Bloom.

“I think it might be best if we work together,” Musa suggested gently. Three of the guys nodded but Riven made no move to agree. She smiled awkwardly and offered his sword back to him. He snatched it back off her without a second glance and marched off.

“Fine,” he shouted back. “Let’s get moving.”

Riven sulked as they crossed an open plain. He had been outvoted on the decision to have the girls track the troll using The Voice of Nature by everyone else to him. 

Stella started making excited noises when she took the lead towards a rocky ford in a river. She grabbed both of Bloom’s hands to squeeze them as she did a little dance on the spot.

“I can feel it!” She squealed. “I couldn’t last year, just followed the rest of my group to pass. But I totally know that the troll is this way.”

“Never seen anyone so happy about a troll,” Riven muttered under his breath. Stella pretended not to hear him.

“Come on, this way.”

The river was much wider and deeper than any of the others they had come across and the princess paused when she got to the edge. The ford was shallower than the rest of it but was still over the knee and fast-moving. The only option for crossing it here was to move over the well-placed stones that were dotted around at intervals and that rose several inches over the surface of the water. It looked to Bloom as if they were there naturally; they were all different heights and shapes and distances apart but it was too convenient for that to be the case.

“Are you sure it’s this way?” Sky asked, looking at the rapid-moving water.

“Uhuh.”

“Yeah.”

“Absolutely.” 

Stella, Musa and Flora were adamant, and Bloom was inclined to agree. The feeling was just right. This was the way and if they carried on they would find the troll. Tecna looked at all four of them in disbelief and shook her head.

“I still can’t hear a damn thing,” she muttered.

“Okay,” Sky said. “So if this is the way that we’re going then how are we going to cross? Is it how I think we have to?”

“Looks like we’re jumping,” Bloom said, even though she hoped that someone would come up with a better, less risky plan. No one said anything, however, and instead Musa lined up and performed a running leap onto the nearest stone.

She landed gracefully and Bloom didn’t miss the quick dart her eyes made to see if Riven was watching her. He was, although if he was impressed he didn’t show it. 

There was enough space for about two people standing upright in each stone Stella followed and then Sky and then Brandon who turned and held out his hands to help Bloom across.

Bloom resisted the urge to close her eyes as she took a run up. As much as she wished she didn’t have to do this, she didn’t think that not seeing would help. It was just far enough of a jump that for a moment it felt like she was just suspended in midair before Brandon grabbed her and pulled her onto the stone. She kept her face pressed into his shoulder as he held his arms around her, and willed herself to control her facial expression. She could feel his heartbeat through the flexible armour over his chest.

And then he pulled away and made the leap to the next stone so that the others could move forward too. They bunny-hopped across the stones, Musa leading the way with Stella helping Sky across, who helped Brandon, who caught Bloom each time she jumped towards him. Then Flora followed with Tecna behind her to help catch the injured Timmy who was pushed forward by Riven. The two of them managed to support the pilot all the way along the stones until they reached the bank.

It was clear to Bloom, who by now was mercifully on firm dry ground (or at least, firm and dry enough) that Timmy was running on willpower and whatever had been in that syringe and that was it. His forehead wound was weeping slightly and the staples were coming loose. Tecna waited for him at the very edge of the river for his last jump.

Timmy tried his best but his exhaustion had caught up with him. His foot missed the bank by only a centimetre but he was propelled forward by Riven throwing himself after his teammate and knocking him forward and into Tecna. Unfortunately this meant that Riven couldn’t reach solid ground and bounced off Timmy’s back and into the water.

Bloom had once fallen from a log bridge and into a river when she had been camping with her parents as a kid. It hadn’t been deep, and it hadn’t been as fast moving as this one, but she could acutely remember the shock of the cold and the inescapable reflex to gasp. Mike had leapt in after her to drag his five-year-old out of the water and help her expel the water from her lungs. She’d thought she was about to die although both of her parents had assured her that that wouldn’t have happened.

Riven’s head went under the water and took too long to resurface. Sky and Brandon raced down the bank to reach him as he picked up speed. Bloom watched, frozen in place, as Sky clipped a line to Brandon and jumped in after their friend.

They were able to pull him and and up into the mud and loose grass of the riverbank, Riven swearing and coughing and spewing up water. He slapped Sky’s hand away and got to his feet himself. He glared hard at Timmy, as if willing him to drop dead.

“Which way now?” He snapped as he looked angrily at Bloom. Silently, and hoping that her gut feeling was still right, she pointed in the way that she was drawn.

They followed The Voice of Nature away from the river and through more trees towards the hills to the east. The girls all pretended to be paying too much attention to their magical instincts to address the tension between the boys and especially Riven, even Tecna who still showed no sign of actually being in tune with nature. They all walked in relative silence until they heard noise up ahead.

Again, Tecna heard it first but the next scream could be heard by the rest of them too.

“Is that-?”

“It sounds like other girls!”

They were all running again, trees flashing by as they heard the noises of a troll about to attack. The guttural noise made Bloom’s blood ran cold as she remembered the way its blue fists had come towards her. She was glad all over again that she hadn’t been hit by them.

“It’s Amaryl!” Flora said as they came to a halt. Stella made a noise that was either an unhappy laugh or a derisive snort.

“You need to distract the troll,” Sky instructed, looking over at the girl.

“I hope your plan has a second step,” Stella said, before bending down to pick up a stone and flinging it at its head. “Remember us, you big blue fuck!”

The troll turned, letting Eleanor slip out of its field of vision, and started charging Stella. He got within several paces of the girls before Timmy and Brandon ran to meet him taking out an ankle each before Riven and Brandon leapt on the creature with the handcuffs.

“Cuff him, Riven!” Sky shouted.

“Easier said than done!”

The troll seemed to recognise the psychic lock he was being approached with a thrashed harder, shaking the boys clinging to his legs fully off the ground a few times. Bloom wanted to try and help but seeing the flailing blue limbs made her feet stay exactly where they were.

There was a roar as Riven was thrown off him and into Sky. With his hands now free, he pulled Timmy off his left leg and started to run until Brandon dropped off his right. 

They picked themselves up to see Amaryl’s group staring at them in disgust. Amaryl’s orange hair was mussed up with dirt and twigs and she had mud smeared across her face, but she was a damn sight cleaner than any of her rescuers.

“What the hell was that?!” She yelled, stomping her foot in a way that would have been comical if it hadn’t been for the danger they’d just been in. “And you let it get away! I can’t believe this!”

Sky opened his mouth but Brandon put a hand on his chest and shook his head. They let the girls they had just saved flounce away in a different direction. The boys looked deflated, even Riven, although he was still scowling.

“That’s the thanks we get…” Sky sighed, shaking his head. “Well, if everyone’s alright, we’d best keep moving.”

Flora took the lead while Bloom brought up the rear with Brandon so she could help him support Timmy. The pilot was having trouble stay upright properly and kept telling them how grateful he was that they had his arms around their shoulders and were helping him walk.

“I’m sorry about what those girls said, Brandon,” Bloom said. He shook his head and smiled.

“I kind of don’t blame them though. It’s our fault that the troll was here and it’s our fault that it attacked them. We’re not professionals yet, the only thing we do really good together is argue…”

Timmy nodded in agreement before shooting a glance at Riven’s back. Bloom gave them both her best smile.

“I still think you’ve been really brave today. Whatever anyone else might say.”

She tried hard not to go red with how cheesy they had sounded and she hoped that Brandon would appreciate what she meant even if it hadn’t been phrased particularly elegantly.

“Hey!” Flora called back as she stopped dead in her tracks. “Did anyone else feel a shift from The Voice of Nature?”

“Yeah,” Musa said. “It kind of… dropped? Something’s changed.”

“Maybe something’s happened to the troll?” Stella asked hopefully, but Sky didn’t seem to share her optimism.

“If it has the investigation will be in serious trouble, but given the state of us, we should be so lucky not to have to go up against it again.”

“Chh.” Riven made a derisive noise that caused Sky to turn on him.

“Enough!” Timmy said loudly, stopping either of them from saying anything. “We have to work together if we want to get anywhere. We won’t be able to capture the troll like this.”

“You’re right,” Riven grumbled. Sky put out his hand for him to shake, which he did.

“Riven and I have decided to call a truce.”

“I’d prefer everlasting peace,” Brandon sighed. “But I’ll take a truce for now.”

Bloom focused on The Voice of Nature again and thought that, yes, it had changed. It wasn’t the hopeful feeling of trying to find the finish line or the creeping fear of tracking the troll, instead it was more of an impulse although without any urgency. 

They moved through the hills until they reached another copse of trees growing from swampy ground. Bloom stopped at the same time the rest of the girls did.

“What’s wrong?” Brandon asked.

“It stops here. Just completely stops,” Bloom said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”

“But there’s no one here?” Sky said, looking around.

“No, but there’s a huge amount of negative energy in this part of the swamp,” Stella said. Tecna murmured her agreement.

“It’s enough that it makes me think someone cast a spell here,” Musa added. “It doesn’t make any sense. They help him escape from your ship, they help him get through the swamp and then… what? They just make him disappear?”

“Who would want to do that?” Sky asked.

“Look!” Bloom bent down to pull several long strands of white hair from a low hanging branch. Were they white or silver? “Do we want to guess which witch has hair like this and an ogre that knew the troll?”

“Do we really think that it’s Icy?” Musa examined the hairs carefully. “How does any of this fit?”

“I’d love to know,” Bloom said, shrugging helplessly. “And I’m not even sure that I’m right.”

They said goodbye to the boys who had to set up a special satellite phone report what had happened as soon as possible, all of whom were sweating nervously at the prospect of reporting their failure, before continuing on with their actual assignment.

It was getting dark by the time that they reached the finish line. The rest of their class were gathered around a pavilion with water bottles, fold-out chairs and bananas, and Professor Palladium was still waiting with his clipboard.

“Sorry Professor,” Stella said, head bowed a little. “I hope we didn’t make you worry.”

“On the contrary, Miss Stella,” he said. “I kept tabs on your connections to The Voice all through this exercise and I’m rather satisfied with your performance today. Well done, you’ve all received high score.”

“What?!” Amaryl got up from her picnic chair in outrage. “But they were the last ones back!”

“True, but I never said this was a race. This was an exercise in listening to your intuition, and at that, they succeeded.” Palladium scribbled a few things down on his clipboard and smiled at them. “Well done, er.. Winx?”


	10. The Weirdest Inn in Magix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, you lucky dogs, and with another monster of a chapter. 6500+ words so it's the longest one yet and again close to double the length of my normal chapters.
> 
> Again it covers a whole episode which is what I'm trying to do from now on (although the next episode is getting split so I can do the action justice), so this will be my life from now.

“So,” Nova said, sucking a burnt finger as she moved her pan off the heat and looked up at Bloom. “When did you guys decide you needed a name?”

“Ah,” Bloom shrugged as she moved a pancake onto the hot plate. One side was a little too brown but it wasn’t quite burnt; Master Sfoglia would hopefully consider it acceptable. “We didn’t really. Amaryl misunderstood something and then it’s kind of stuck.”

“It’s kind of an earworm, isn’t it? No wonder Palladium’s now in on it.” Nova chuckled as she melted more butter. “Winx… I like it.”

“Oh don’t tell Stella that!” Bloom looked around the kitchen again although she knew that her cooking buddy was still absent from the lesson. “She’s still convinced that, because it came from Amaryl, it’s pejorative somehow.”

“I’m not surprised. They didn’t get on when they were in prep school either,” Nova shook her head. Like Stella and Amaryl, Nova was from Solaria and had light-based powers too. Stella seemed to be on good terms with her, unlike Amaryl, and they both liked to study the gossip magazines from their home world together. “Where is our Princess right now?”

“‘Ill’,” Bloom said, giving her a knowing look. “I’m sure she’ll be feeling better by the time we said we’d meet some of the Red Fountain boys though.”

“Ooh.” Nova was grinning as she got ready to flip her next pancake. “Please tell me that she’s still chasing that Eraklyon prince? That is just the juiciest gossip… don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. I’m just pleased that I know before all my other friends from home.” 

Bloom nodded and assessed the food in the pan. She could flip it now and risk it looking ‘anaemic’ as Sfoflia often liked to call pale food, or wait and hope it didn’t stick. 

They made plans with Sky and Brandon for that evening and she was going to introduce Kiko to Sky’s dog Lady. She’d originally been trying to keep some distance between herself and Brandon given she still had some lingering feelings for Andy, but after the adventure in the swamp and then the subsequent weeks where the boys were being punished for their mistakes, she was eager to spend time with him. And maybe not have that many other people around.

A double date. That’s essentially what it was, even if she was refusing to call it that. Stella knew how she felt but was angling for her friend and the prince’s bodyguard to get together so she had phrased the idea as ‘not making Brandon have to be a gooseberry’ so Bloom felt compelled to come too.

She was looking forward to it, and didn’t hold it against Stella to be skipping an unimportant class to get ready. If Bloom didn’t feel sick at the idea of being found to be playing truant, she might have considered joining her.

“It is, right?” Nova pushed.

“Yeah. But it’s not really a date. Stella is really strict about how any guy is supposed to ask her out, and it requires three days’ notice and a physical invitation. I think she’s just teasing him right now,” Bloom grinned and risked a flip. The pancake flew up too high into the air and she winced.

“Nice aim,” Nova noted as she too stared at the half-cooked batter now revolving with the ceiling fan. “Do you think Sfoglia will notice?”

An hour later Bloom was staring at two pairs of her shoes, trying to work out which looked best with the outfit that she had picked out. Every so often, Flora would look up from her homework and smile, but hadn’t offered her opinion. Kiko lay on the bed, his eyes lazily following his mistress’ movements as she wandered about the room, holding up her heels.

She was going to be walking her dog, so she shouldn’t go too high with them, right? But the others were a better colour and Kiko was a well-behaved puppy…

“Are you very nervous?” Flora asked as Bloom paced past her desk yet again.

“I don’t know why this is such big deal? I’ve hung out with both of them before and they’re both sweet… Not like I’m spending the evening with Riven. Maybe it’s because we’re going to a fancy place?” Bloom chewed on her finger as she thought.

“Pick whichever you’re going to be most comfortable in. Stella won’t let you leave the dorm without her fashion approval anyway so you might as well pick something that won’t hurt your feet,” Flora said sagely as she set her pen down. “Where is it that you decided on going, anyway?”

“Some restaurant and club? It sounds very grown up so I don’t want to look too much like a kid…”

She needn’t have worried so much though, as Stella spent about twenty minutes altering Bloom’s appearance before they could leave, and the princess’ outfit wasn’t outrageous enough to make her feel underdressed in comparison.

They caught the shuttle into Magix, sitting a few seats down from a pair of witches in denim shorts and heavy boots who gave them the stink eye. Again, Bloom marvelled at the colours of their hair and the drama in their eye makeup. Kiko grumbled at them, but didn’t move off her lap. Fortunately, the witches got off a couple of stops before them, close to where that dive bar had been and Bloom avoided their gaze as they left.

Stella tried not to touch her hair too much during the journey since it was in a precarious updo held together with a hundred bobby pins and a prayer, and stared at the sword ring on her finger. Stella had a pained expression on her face as she held the back of her hand up to her eye. Bloom could tell what her friend was thinking: the amber stone in the centre of the ring was just the wrong colour of orange to go with her teal dress and it was bothering her. Finally, Stella gave her a sheepish grin.

“I was hoping to be responsible and keep the ring on me like I’d promised, but it really, really doesn’t go and it’s upsetting me.”

“Keep it in your clutch?” Bloom suggested, eyeing up the small bag on Stella’s lap.

“I would, but the clasp isn’t very secure so I’s just be too nervous. If I lost it or it was stolen Dad would throw a fit and it really would be my fault.” Sella sighed.

“Why don’t we keep it in my bag?” Bloom offered. Her little bag went across her body and she wasn’t planning on taking it off. If they put it in her purse inside the bag then it would be even less likely to go missing. “I can give it back anytime you want, but it would be safe there.”

“Bloom, you are amazing!” Stella flung her arms around her friend and squeezed her, before slipping the heirloom off her finger and putting in securely in the middle pocket of Bloom’s purse before zipping the purse back into Bloom’s bag. She waggled her fingers, grinning. “Oh my god! That’s so much better.”

They got off the bus and made their way past a selection of fancy restaurants and apothecaries to get to a large powder blue building that was lit outside by real lanterns and braziers. There were two men in suits and dark glasses by the door and Bloom tried to follow Stella’s lead and not look intimidated. But after they gave their names and reservations to the doorman the men in dark glasses waved them through without any issue. Stella took the lead as they passed fancily dressed tables with ornate candles and large flowers. Bloom hoped that her friend was right about this place being dog-friendly; sure, Kiko was a quiet and well behaved animal, but the staff didn’t necessarily know that.

A hostess took them through to a well lit garden past several other VIP-looking tables that had screens protecting certain angles. Bloom accidentally made eye contact with a lanky looking boy with floppy dark hair and a small face tattoo who was sat with an older man with a silver ponytail, sideburns and goatee. The boy gave her a sly smile and she quickly averted her gaze.

Sky and Brandon were already seated at a wooden table surrounded by a tall privacy screen decorated with fairy lights and climbers by the time they got there. Next to Brandon was a pale brown dog that looked kind of like a greyhound but with a stronger jaw and sharper teeth.

Lady got to her feet as the girls took their seats, and she went to sniff at the new dog in her presence, shoving her nose under Kiko’s tail and shunting his bottom forward.

“Lady!” Sky said, trying to get her attention. “Don’t be rude!” He laughed as Stella leaned over the corner to plant a kiss on his cheek and leave a light imprint of her lipstick on his skin.

“Hey now,” Brandon clicked his tongue at the dog and she slunk back under his chair, laying her head on her front legs.

“I swear that dog doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be guarding,” Sky laughed. “She much prefers Brandon to me.”

Bloom smiled awkwardly at the bodyguard, kind of wanting to greet him the way Stella had greeted Sky but not having the courage to. Instead, it was a smile and a small wave that he returned. She was scared that after she’d turned him down at the beginning of term he wasn’t all that interested in her romantically anymore. He had to go wherever Sky went because that was his job. He was probably just glad that he didn’t have to watch his friend and Stella get disgustingly romantic on his own.

“I just spend more time with her,” Brandon shrugged, reaching down to scratch Lady behind her ears. “All part of keeping you safe.”

“Is there a reason you have to have this much security?” Bloom asked, and then went red when all of them looked at her but didn’t say anything. “Sorry, if that was a bad thing to ask. I really don’t know much about the magical dimensions.”

“No, it’s okay,” Sky said.

“Eraklyon is a bit different to Solaria, the royal family holds a lot more power,” Brandon explained, correctly guessing that part of her confusion came from how Stella was able to walk around with little supervision while Sky had to have a bodyguard and a guard dog. And he took his security seriously which made her think it wasn’t just his parents being overprotective.

“To cut a long story short,” Sky said, rubbing his forehead. “There’s a terrorist group on Eraklyon that has sent me threats. Run by a guy called Yoshinoya who has made assassination attempts before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, it’s not like I would have expected you to know even if you hadn’t been cut off from magic on Earth your whole life.” Sky smiled. “Do you need any help with the menu this time?”

Bloom blushed and had a look at the leather bound booklet in front of her. This restaurant had placed a spell on it so that she could understand the characters written in front of her but a lot of the dish names didn’t mean anything to her. The boys helped her pick out a fancy pasta dish (thank god Stella was covering her dinner) and a vegetable side that she was assured was amazing.

Stella did a lot of the talking that evening, and scooted her chair as close to Sky as the table and its corner would allow. He didn’t indulge her in too much PDA but held her hand between their plates instead and that seemed to pacify her.

Bloom and Brandon walked the dogs around the perimeter of the garden to give the other two some privacy. Lady decided that she tolerated Kiko enough to walk next to him while she kept look out for anyone suspicious that might hurt her master.

“Have you had fun tonight?” Brandon asked. He seemed relaxed but she could also see that his hand was close to the hilt on his belt (that was called a phantoblade, she had learned earlier that evening) and his eyes were constantly scanning the restaurant.

“Yeah, I’m really glad that Stella invited me to come out. It’s been great.” The food had been amazing, as had the atmosphere and the company. She liked Sky and Brandon both, they could both hold a good conversation and had good senses of humour. It was also clear that they had a lot of respect and affection for each other and Bloom wasn’t sure she’d seen two guys so at ease together, ever.

“It was nice to have company going out. Stella’s great and all…” he trailed off and Bloom knew what he meant.

“She’s very high energy,” she agreed, and turned to look back at their friends. Stella had settled on his lap and was promptly seeing how far down Sky’s throat she could shove her tongue. The girl knew what she wanted, and she was getting it.

“I know Sky is really into her.”

“That’s good to know, otherwise I’d feel obliged to pull her off him.” Brandon chuckled at that and she smiled. He had a nice laugh. “You've both got to go soon, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. Their main punishment for losing the troll was over, however, they were still paying for that incident and would be for quite some time. “Codatorta is being a real pain about our earlier curfew.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t recapture the troll.”

“It’s not your fault. Honestly, with how ‘they’ planned it out, I’m not sure we could have caught it again. Not without the information we know now. All part of our training, I guess…” Brandon saw her face and smiled reassuringly. “At least the troll is gone now. I hope for good.”

They returned to the table with the dogs, Brandon coughing a little so that Stella knew they were there and she could climb off the prince and back into her own chair. Bloom was mostly surprised that her lipstick had survived the onslaught of mouth on mouth. Sky looked like he’d eaten blackberries a bit too enthusiastically. Bloom offered him a napkin.

“Do we need to go now?” The prince asked, wiping his face. There was still a pink tinge to his chin.

“Yeah, any later and we’re going to get a bollocking.”

The guys settled their part of the bill while Stella insisted on staying on at the restaurant and having a few more drinks after they left. Bloom was pressed into getting dessert and was pleased to find that chocolate existed outside of Earth. Stella sat back in her seat, looking a little dejected, as she sipped a brightly coloured mocktail with a little umbrella. She was too recognisable, even off Solaria, for anyone to serve her actual alcohol so she just drank her blue and orange juice and stared off into the distance.

“Did you not have fun?” Bloom asked as she finished off her pudding. Stella sighed and took another deep drink.

“It was great but I have no idea how Sky feels.”

“Really? He seemed pretty into you when you were… on him.” He didn’t even looked fazed that their friends had watched them make out heavily for at least a minute.

“I keep trying to get him to come back to our dorm, or let me into his.”

Oh. Oh. Bloom blinked. For some reason she hadn’t considered that as a possibility soon, but she guessed it wasn’t unusual for seventeen year olds to be interested in sex. She also knew that several people in her school year back in Gardenia who had been sleeping together for a while already.

“And he’s not interested?” That seemed unlikely. He clearly thought Stella was attractive and wanted to date her. Maybe he just didn’t want that yet.

“He didn’t exactly say that. But he basically turned me down, he’s been saying ‘maybe later’ for a while now, and I don’t know when ‘later’ is,” she said glumly. “He’ll happily send me texts like… well, you’ve seen. But nothing actually physical.”

Bloom thought that that last bit was a stretch considering the position they’d been in when she’d come back to the table but decided against staying anything about that now.

“Maybe he’s just not ready? Some guys just aren’t for a while-”

“I know he’s not a virgin though. I know he’s slept with two other girls because I asked and he told me. So what’s wrong with me?”

There was silence for a long time. Stella just sitting back in her seat, sipping her obnoxiously coloured drink through a crazy straw while Bloom stared at the remnants of her dessert. What do you say to that? There wasn’t anything wrong with Stella, of course not, but Sky wasn’t obliged to want to sleep with her and didn’t even have to give her a reason. In fact, Bloom thought, he probably did want to but just not yet.

“I’m being a bummer.” Bloom looked up to see Stella set her empty glass down and start taking the pins out of her hair. “I don’t want to be a bummer so let’s go dancing for a bit.”

They packed the bobby pins into Stella’s clutch and went to pay their bill before finding the dance floor in the building. The princess seemed happier swaying to the music and indulging in her habit of flipping her hair. They danced together for a while, not moving too far away from each other, before one of the staff approached and tapped Stella on the shoulder. It was too loud for them to hear what they were saying so the princess went with them, mouthing ‘I’ll be back’ at Bloom as she left.

Bloom watched her go, suddenly hyperaware of her limbs now that she was dancing on her own. She hoped that Stella wouldn’t be too long since she hadn’t really ever been to a nightclub before, let alone without company. After a while she went to the bar to buy another drink and sit down for a bit, her feet were hurting even though she was in her ‘comfortable’ heels.

She sent a ‘thank you and goodnight’ to Brandon, which she thought was cute when she wrote it but immediately regretted it the moment she sent it. Thankfully he replied in kind and let her know that they were back safe at Red Fountain, getting underway with their homework.

Bloom put her phone down, not wanting to seem too eager or become a bother by texting him again, and looked around the room trying to gauge the clientele of this place. It had quite a few older rich women adorned in bright jewellery, while there were clusters of other students about her age dancing on the spot and sipping their drinks. It was hard to work this place out, was it more exclusive venue or country club?

A few minutes later, when she was halfway through the soda she’d ordered and running out of confidence to keep sitting at the bar, Bloom was tapped on the shoulder by a member of the wait staff and beckoned to follow the lady away from the loud music.

“Your friend asked me to give you a message,” the waitress said when they were in a quieter part of the building.

“Stella?”

“The princess, yes.” The woman nodded. Her name badge said she was called Rebecca. “She received an invitation to go out with a gentleman and asked me to let you know she’s gone to join him but has left her credit card at the bar to cover your tab.”

“Oh.” Bloom had a bad feeling about that. As far as she knew, Sky was back at Red Fountain with Brandon doing his homework and probably having a late night workout. It was possible that Stella had been distracted by another guy that she was chasing but Bloom couldn’t think who that would be. Maybe it was an old boyfriend and she was taking her mind off whatever was going on with the prince. Whatever had happened, she needed to know who Stella was with, even if it was just for her peace of mind. “Do you still have the invitation?”

“Well…”

“I’d just like to see it, to know who she’s with. I understand if you can’t, I’m just worried.”

“Alright,” Rebecca said, looking uncomfortable. “I’ll just show it to you but you can’t tell my boss.”

Bloom waited in the hallway, looking around anxiously to make sure no one had been listening in to their conversation, while the waitress went to fetch the invitation. It was hard to tell what out of the churning feelings in her gut were her nerves and what were her instincts telling her something was wrong.

“Here you go.” Rebecca held out a strong piece of white card with a fancy border, making sure that, while Bloom could see what was written on it, it didn’t leave her hand.

It was from Sky, just a short message saying that he’d thought about her a lot and wanted to meet at the Black Lagoon as soon as possible since he didn’t have much time. Bloom paused as she read it, a weird sense of foreboding hovering over her.

“Could I take a picture?” She asked. 

“I really can’t let you, I’m sorry.”

That was fair enough, Bloom gave her an apologetic smile for asking in the first place, and tried to memorise the exact wording as best she could before she thanked Rebecca and went back to the bar. She bought another soft drink and mulled things over. Eventually, she came to the conclusion that she couldn’t make a decision on her own and took out her phone.

It rang and rang until she got to Stella’s voicemail, so she hung up. She tried again, but with the same result. After that, she stared at her screen until she came up with another idea for how to deal with this. Okay, she needed help.

“Hello?” Tecna answered on the third ring. Bloom closed her eyes and hoped she’d made the right choice to involve the other girls. Of all of them, Tecna was the most sceptical about how Stella conducted herself and the risks she took.

“I think I need help, or some advice or something.”

Bloom attempted to explain as best she could about the invitation and Sky and the date and her bad feeling. Tecna listened in silence as she spoke, quiet enough that Bloom wondered if she was still there, but she eventually spoke once the monologue was over.

“I think you’re right to be worried,” was her assessment, “but don’t panic yet. We can check with the guys if Sky has snuck out to see her. Wouldn’t want to interrupt them if there isn’t anything wrong.”

“What’s the Black Lagoon?”

“Let me search for it, okay, I don’t know anything about it off the top of my head.”

Bloom waited while Tecna typed, then hummed, and then scrolled. Down the phone she could hear her stifle a laugh.

“Okay, I’m kind of not surprised Stella didn’t say anything to you before leaving… it’s an abandoned old inn on the outskirts of Magix City, next to the huge park. Not sure who owns it, but the first couple of hits are about students and other young people being busted for having sex there.”

“Oh my god.”

“Well, you said Stella was upset that Sky was putting off sleeping with her, if he changed his mind I’m not surprised that they might at least meet there.”

“Surely they could just get a hotel!”

“Maybe the plan was to just meet there, let’s not assume our princess would be quite that classless. But I think we can agree that it’s good bait, either for Sky himself or whoever is giving you your bad feeling. Why don’t we get in touch with the boys? I can message Timmy if that helps.”

They agreed to each get in touch with one of the guys and then share what they’d found. Bloom stared at Brandon’s profile in her phone, and started working herself up to calling him. She had to tell herself that she wouldn’t be annoying him, she was just checking to make sure that her friend was okay. 

Taking a deep breath and focusing on the dread in her stomach as the reason she was doing this, she pressed a finger on his number to call. She stared into her glass as it rang until he picked up and greeted her.

“Hey, Bloom, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry to bother you…” she gulped. “Do you know if Sky is still with you? There’s just been a bit of confusion and I hoped you could let me know what’s going on your end.”

“Oh, er… well he went down to the gym about twenty minutes ago. I’m pretty sure he’s still in Red Fountain,” he laughed. “Do you want me to go check if he’s still working out?”

“N-no, that’s okay.” Bloom was relieved. Chances were, Sky had slipped away from his bodyguard to go meet Stella and if she sent him to check it would end with Brandon walking in on something he shouldn’t. Not only that, but he was Sky’s bodyguard, so of course he’d be on board with ensuring his safety. “Thanks, bye.”

She hung up and then sent Tecna a text about what she’d been told. It went to read for a beat and then Tecna was calling her back.

“Bad news,” she said bluntly before Bloom could even greet her. “I messaged Timmy and he said he can literally see Sky on the bench press right now. He’s definitely in the Red Fountain gym.”

“What… what does that mean?” Bloom felt lightheaded, where was Stella? Who had sent the note?

“Are you still at the club?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m coming over, bringing Musa and Flora too. It’s going to be okay, it’s probably just a cruel prank from Amaryl, and we’ll sort it out any maybe curse her hair.” Tecna sounded amused but it was masking how serious she was and how much she was concentrating. Bloom felt a little better knowing she wasn’t going to be alone here for much longer.

While she waited for the others to arrive she went to find where Stella had left her credit card so she could close the tab and pay off the bill. She crossed the garden again to reach the front door and saw the young man and, she assumed given the similarities in their faces, his father. He didn’t look like he had known where they were going that evening; he certainly wasn’t dressed for a place this nice. Even the other students here had put on fancy clothes and made themselves up, whereas this boy was in slouchy jeans and an oversized jacket. They were getting into two separate taxis, the older man looking annoyed.

This time, Bloom made sure not to draw attention to herself and left the building without being spotted. She waited at the end of the pathway to the front door for the others to get there; the buses ran late on a Friday so it should only be a twenty minute ride but it still felt like an age for them to arrive.

Then she saw them coming down the road Tecna was walking fast, Musa almost running to keep up with her and Flora was trotting behind in a pair of flip-flops that Bloom had to assume were her only set of flats.

“Right,” Tecna said, determination on her face. “Let’s get going.”

Bloom joined the other two behind her as she marched towards the nearest taxi rank about a block away, tottering behind in her heels until they reached the first cab in the queue and a car door was opened for her so could she duck in.

“The Black Lagoon, please,” Tecna asked with the kind of confidence that Bloom only wished she could emulate.

“You sure that you want to go there?” The taxi driver looked at them seriously through the rear view mirror. Without missing a beat Tecna nodded.

“Yes. We have to pick up a friend.”

“Would you like me to wait at the end of the street for you, then? I’ll still have to leave the meter running but…”

“Yes. Please.”

Bloom hoped that Tecna was willing to foot the bill for the cab because she didn’t know how long it would take to extract Stella from the prank and she seriously doubted that she could cover ‘her’ quarter of it.

The route was long and, Bloom felt, circuitous until they reached the outside of town and turned down a path that was surprisingly rural for somewhere so close to the city. The driveway to the Black Lagoon was edged by dark coloured bushes and tall trees that closed over the road, giving it a tunnel effect until they hit the little courtyard outside that was covered in gravel. Bloom tried to imagine Stella wobbling across it in her stiletto heels only to realise that she was going to have to do that in a moment.

“I’ll turn the car around and wait for you out here,” the cabbie said as they all piled out. Tecna thanked him and held out an arm for Bloom to cling onto as they made their way to the old and dilapidated door.

They got within a few meters of the front porch before the heavy door was pushed open by the boy with the face tattoo. Bloom stopped in her tracks when she saw him. He was smiling, as if he had been waiting for them.

“Where’s Stella?” She yelled hotly, trying not to look pathetic as she tottering towards him in her stupid shoes.

“Oh, come inside,” he said, beckoning them. “She’s been dying to see you.” His form vanished into the unlit hall of the old inn.

“This is some kind of trap, isn’t it?” Said Musa.

“Yeah, well, what other choice do we have right now?” Bloom set her teeth and followed the boy inside. “Who are you?” Her voice echoed out down the decaying entrance room but yielded no response.

The passageway led them towards what might have once been a dining room. Someone had plugged in a lamp that was the only source of light for the whole area and the boy with the face tattoo was leaning against an old hostess station. Another figure, a woman, was standing close to the far end with her back to them.  
Stella turned around when the other girls came into the room, she had a smile on her face but it didn’t look right. Bloom didn’t think she’d ever seen the princess look so cruel.

“Well, if it isn’t my friends,” she said. “I’m so glad you could make it. Now give me my ring back, I want what is mine.”

“Stella…” Bloom looked at her friend, confused.

“Now!”

When none of them moved immediately, Stella summoned a ball of light and flung it at them. Bloom would have been hit square in the chest if Flora hadn’t yanked her out of the way and behind the relative safety of some long-disused dining tables. She landed on the floor next to her friend, smacking her shoulder into the mouldering carpet; that was going to leave a bruise.

Across the room, Tecna had pulled Musa behind one of the supporting pillars and was quickly making a few of her hand signs to put up one of her Zenith barriers around the two of them. It was just in time as a crackling ball of white light exploded into it. The sparks that erupted hit the pillar and Tecna grimaced.

Another ball of light hit the barrier and bounced off onto the beam, taking out a significant chunk of wood. Bloom caught another flash of light as Tecna transformed and her green wall strengthened as she grabbed Musa’s arm and dragged her across the room to where the other two were.

“Had to move, if that pillar gets taken out the whole place could fall down,” she panted.

“What’s going on?” Bloom was aware that she should be more impressed with how Tecna was evaluating the situation and how calm she was, but she was far more worried about what was happening to Stella. “What’s wrong with her?”

Both Musa and Tecna gave her incredulous looks.

“What?”

“That’s not Stella, Bloom,” Flora said gently, as she covered her head with her arms.

“How? But…” She trailed off as another ball of light whizzed passed their heads. Of course just because it looked like Stella it didn’t mean that it actually was. She was in a magical city on a magical planet; there was no reason that someone couldn’t shape shift or cast an illusion on themselves. “Oh my god. And Stella is basically useless in a fight without her ring.”

“Hey!” Musa yelled. “Tell us who you are and what you want!”

“Fine.” The onslaught of energy balls ceased and, as they peered out from behind the table, they saw the figure of their friend melt away. “I guess it’s time to drop the disguise and return to myself.”

Darcy sighed and waved her hand and her other two accomplices appeared next to her. Icy looking cruelly pleased with this turn of events and Stormy examining her manicure as if she wasn’t bothered by the scene in front of her.

In the next instant, Musa and Flora were starting to transform and Bloom hurriedly followed suit. The light of their change flashed by quickly and Bloom had to centre herself a little so as not to be thrown off by sudden pouring of energy through her blood.

Icy stepped forward, acting nonchalant but her piercing eyes were assessing each of them. She clicked her fingers at the boy with the face tattoo, who rolled his eyes at being summoned as such but still wandered over to her.

“Darko, could you be a dear and bring the princess in?” She asked sweetly, with enough genuine affection that Bloom had to do a double take. The boy nodded and went behind the bar area and lifted a trap door to what Bloom assumed was a wine cellar.

“Are you insane?” Tecna spoke, with her arms folded firmly against her chest. “Abducting a princess and what? Trying to ransom her off for a priceless royal heirloom? There is no reason I shouldn’t be calling the authorities right now.”

“And yet you aren’t and you haven’t,” Icy shrugged. “If you want your princess back all you have to do is hand over the sword ring of Solaria which I’m assuming is in your possession, Bloom.”

“We can fight,” Musa muttered to the other girls, clenching her fist. But Flora looked over at Tecna and put a hand on Musa’s shoulder.

“Bloom should make the decision,” Tecna said, shaking her head. “She has the ring and she knows Stella better than any of us.”  
Before Bloom had time to process the immense pressure that had just been thrust upon her, Darko reappeared carrying with him a limp form over his shoulder, bound in threads of bright white light.

“Poor Stella,” Darcy cooed. “All wrapped up in my psychic bands. One thought from me and they’ll squeeze her until she pops. Time’s running out to decide, the ring for your friend, Bloom.”

The threads were constricting, sinking into her skin and making her face turn red. There was no way that they’d actually go through with killing her, Bloom was sure. 

After everything, they were still girls like her, right? But a nasty thought was seeping into her head that she didn’t know that for certain, and the witches had already kidnapped her and somehow knocked her out. Was she really willing to risk Stella’s life on a hunch that the girls from Cloud Tower were decent people deep down?  
Bloom let go of the strong pull of her magic and her fairy form disappeared. Reaching into her bag she took out the ring and clenched it in her fist tightly.

“We can’t risk Stella’s life,” she said, shaking her head. “Alright, Icy, release Stella and I’ll give you the ring.”

Icy held out her hand, long blue acrylics pointed upwards like the jaws of a bear trap. She nodded to Darcy as the ring dropped into her palm. The bonds around Stella vanished and she started to stir.

The witches dropped back, Darko having his arm seized by Icy, before the ring was thrown in the air and its sceptre form was summoned. Icy swiped it down in the same way that Stella had whenever she’d transported and all four of them were gone; leaving the girls to rush to their friend's side. Tecna stayed in her fairy form just in case anyone came back but Musa and Flora dropped back to normal to help Bloom get Stella into a better position.

“I’m sorry girls,” the princess groaned. “I should have known this was a trap.”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. How are you feeling?”

They got back to Alfea just before curfew thanks to the taxi that had been waiting for them down the road. Stella refused to let Tecna pay the bill and handed her own money over to the driver when they reached the school. The whole walk up to their suit, Bloom held onto Stella while the princess wobbled about still under some lingering effects of the spell.

They all got ready for bed in relative silence. Bloom didn’t know what to say and it appeared that nobody else did either; they’d saved Stella but they’d lost a priceless piece of Solarian history in the process. Bloom wondered if they really could have taken the witches if it had come down to a fight; after all, they other girls had successfully rescued her when they’d been holding her captive. The ‘What ifs’ were going to kill her.

Once they were sure Stella was alright and had drifted off to sleep, they all went back to their own rooms, but not before Tecna caught Bloom’s hand.

“You did the right thing, I think,” she said softly. “There isn’t a person involved that would have wanted the ring more than Stella alive and unharmed.”

“It’s just a shit situation to be in,” Bloom sighed, looking at the floor miserably. Stella was going to have to tell her father or at least the Royal Secretary about what happened and they were all going to blame Bloom for it.

“Yes,” Tecna agreed. “But this isn’t the end, the witches haven’t won and we still have time before they sell it, or destroy it, or do whatever they plan to do with it.” She released Bloom’s hand after a gentle squeeze and went to follow Musa to their bedroom.

Bloom paused for a moment, watching her go. Maybe it was for the best that they try and retrieve the stolen ring themselves before they alerted any adults.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to DH for proofing all of this, even if it was with much sass, here are two of the comments he made while going through it with me:  
> "That needs reworking it is nonsense" and  
> "I think your compulsion to string all of your sentences together has been your downfall in this case"


	11. The Weirdest Heist Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, so, this may be very late.  
> I have excuses but they aren't very interesting, mostly just life being life and requiring me to be an actual adult.  
> If I'm still adulting well, Chapter 12 will be up tomorrow.

Bloom scanned the library as she collected the books she intended to take out. She kept telling herself that there was nothing wrong or suspicious in her to be doing this research, and that no one else knew she might be using it for less than legitimate reasons.

It wasn’t a heist, it was just some extracurricular studying…

She crammed the books on Magical Mythos between a book on Basic Magical Botany (to supplement her textbook) and a few pamphlets on techniques to help with fairy transformations as she took the pile to the librarian to check it out. The librarian, Miss Barbatea, smiled at her as she scanned her student card and then rubbed the spines of all the books so they could be taken out of the wing.

“Doing some extra credit work?” She asked when she got to the books on Solarian legends and ancient magical artefacts. Bloom tried to not look guilty. It was okay, she had been told to look into the culture of the other dimensions, she was trying to work out who she was.

“Just out of interest, actually, Stella talks a lot about home so…” she trailed off in a way that she hoped seemed nonchalant and not like she had run out of words. Miss Barbatea didn’t look like she found anything suspicious about her answer though and handed the anxiety-inducing items over.

“Enjoy them, they’re due back in a fortnight.”

Bloom focused very hard on walking normally as she made her way back to her rooms. No one was scrutinising her, she told herself, just put one foot in front of the others. God, how did she overthink herself into a position where she forgot how to walk properly?!

Eventually, she managed to distract herself with the prospect of the next meet up with Brandon and his squad enough that she felt like she had returned to normal, and she was able to make it back to the Winx suite.

The other four were waiting in their common room working on their homework together. Tecna was scribbling furiously in a workbook, her pen flying across the page, but the others looked up from their work to greet her.

“Why do you look like you’re pretending not to be drunk?” Stella asked as Bloom waddled awkwardly over with the books.

“I’ve done our Maths homework,” Tecna said abruptly, distracting the princess from any response she was expecting from Bloom. “How is the Metamorphosis worksheet going?”

They were all chipping in to get the work done as quickly as possible so they could get back to planning their extracurricular activity. It made homework go a lot faster even if they had to write their Magical History essays themselves (although Flora had written out a detailed plan that they could all follow, just writing in their own words). 

Bloom got out the books she had retrieved and turned to the relevant pages. Stella peered curiously over her shoulder, ignoring the Botany worksheet she was supposed to be filling out, to see the photo of the sword-ring that was shown lying in a glass case that bore the Solarian royal crest on the clasp.

“Yeah that’s it.”

“I can’t believe that you don’t know anything about an extremely powerful magical weapon that’s been in your family for eons,” Musa said, shaking her head as she copied the Maths homework off Tecna.

“Hey, it was just given to me. Not like anyone told me anything about it.”

“Okay,” Bloom brought the book into her lap to read it out loud. “‘The Ring of Solaria: otherwise known as the Sword of Power; the Sword of Solaria; the Sword Ring; or the Solarian Sceptre is a part of the lineal right of the Royal Office of the Sun and Moon in the Solarian Royal Household and has been so since before the planet was unified.

“Its exact origins have been lost to time since its creation predates the written word and indeed the Kingdom of Solaria itself. It is thought to be one of the gifts from the Great Dragon, its metal having been forged in the Dragon’s fire before being bathed in the Spring of Light.

“The powers of the Ring of Solaria are not fully known. While its ability to magnify the power of the wielder, especially in combat, and its power of teleportation are well documented, many owners of the Sword Ring have reported being able to access different abilities that were previously unknown however these appear to be unique to each wielder. Since Princess Aditya II took the office these newly discovered powers and any subsequent discoveries were classified and are no longer in the public domain. Huh.”

Stella gave an embarrassed shrug as the others looked at her.

“So there are powers that your ring has that no one even knows about?” Said Musa, in awe.

“It’s basically a whole cache of state secrets at this point.” Tecna raised an eyebrow at the princess who, to her credit, looked a little chagrinded. “It’s quite possible that they intend to sell it for blackmail or try to extort Stella’s family.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

They all turned to look at Bloom, who blushed red and returned her eyes to the book in her lap.

“Why?” Flora prompted gently.

“Okay, so it’s mostly gut feeling but we’re supposed to listen to those, right? Look, they’re girls around our age and while they’re willing to break the law and risk a lot for this artefact I don’t think they really have all that many ties to the underworld. Besides, do we really think that they’re after money? I get the sense power is more what they’re after and if they can unlock any of these secret powers…” she trailed off as she touched the picture of the Ring of Solaria.

“Maybe you’re right,” Stella said. “But there is something that we should take into account: that boy, ‘Darko’ is Drako Warzacki, the son of Mazakis Warzacki the disgraced Ice Kingdom Courtier and current Magix Mafia Boss.” 

There was a silence as they all looked at each other. Bloom’s stomach dropped and she regretted saying anything: of course that kind of political dealing was more likely and if Stella hadn’t known about Darko then she would have led them completely astray.

“We need to move fast then,” Tecna said, pulling out her laptop. “I’ve figured out a way to get into Cloud Tower, and from here.”

“What?”

“Well, Bloom told us - thank you Bloom - that she discovered the witches coming through an underground tunnel that they claimed connected the three schools - don’t get too excited Stella.” Stella’s face dropped in disappointment. “And I thought that was worth checking out, so I scanned the subterranean perimeter of Alfea and matched it to the blueprints of both schools and yeah, Red Fountain, Cloud Tower, and Alfea are all linked by underground tunnels.”

Tecna put up a holographic image to show the tunnels as the internet understood them, and a thin yellow line showed the route that they would take to get to the floor that held the third year’s dorms.

Both Bloom and Flora ‘ohhed’ at the show and Tecna looked smug.

“Surely some of the access points have to be shut off or closed, the schools can’t honestly just be leaving passageways to all over the countryside open, right?” Musa shook her head in disbelief.

“While Magix is going through a bit of a tech boom, it’s still nowhere near up to par with Zenith. I doubt the current Heads know enough about these long abandoned tunnels to do anything about them and assume no else knows either. If I didn’t have the software from home I wouldn’t have been able to come up with this rendering.”

Tecna continued talking but most of it passed Bloom by. If Tecna thought that this would work, it was good enough for Bloom. What caught her attention instead was a page reference to the Great Dragon later on in the book, and so she turned to that page.

The drawing on the left hand side was of what Bloom might have described as sort of a Chinese Dragon, it had those moustache tendril things and was a long wyrm with no wings. It had been drawn in a red ink and with gold leaf edging it. She wasn’t entirely sure why students were able to take out such an old and valuable book, surely it risked being damaged by teenagers.

The Great Dragon, it turned out, was part of the magical dimensions’ creation myth and the supposed source of all magical energy. The temple she had visited in Magix was dedicated to him and the nymphs that she had spent so long looking at were nominally his servants. The story (as it was told in brief in the book) went that the Dragon’s breath created each magical planet in turn before the Dragon went to rest on the last world he had created; the fire world of Domino. 

“Stella?” She asked when there was a lull in Tecna’s explanation of technological magic. “What is Domino like?”

“Domino?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s one of the dead planets,” Tecna interjected, before turning her attention back to her map.

“It’s dead, why?” Bloom prompted when no one added anything.

“Several centuries ago there was some sort of cataclysmic event and it rendered the whole planet uninhabitable and its people either died or became refugees and assimilated on other worlds,” Stella shrugged. “I know there was an effort to retake it and reform the dimension about twenty years ago but that failed and I think it’s used as an example in our Magical Environment module.”

“Oh, cool, are there many dead planets?”

They filled out their homework while Bloom was filled in on the other lifeless dimensions in the magical universe. Apparently there was a distinct difference between a dead planet and one that had never held life - which she thought was referred to as a barren world but she wasn’t able to ask between writing her essay and the lecture on whether Mars was dead or barren.

Their study session was brought to a halt when Stella’s phone went off loudly and she opened her messages.

“Allegra just sent me a copy of the Cloud Tower schedule - from nine until midnight tonight there’s a witches’ evening going on at the Dark Willow and apparently it’s pretty much clearing the school out.”

“Then we should go now,” Tecna said getting up.

“Are you sure?” Stella didn’t look certain but was also getting to her feet.

“It’s the cleaning supplies closet on the ground floor,” said Bloom. “Do we need to bring anything in particular?”

They ended up just taking Tecna’s small palmtop computer as they snuck very quietly down to the ground floor and the supply cupboard that Bloom had tried to find scissors in. Kiko had protested being left alone without his mistress, but his bowl had been filled with food and Bloom had hastily thrown treats around the room for him to find.

Tecna took the lead with her map and they navigated the maze of dark dirt tunnels in silence but for the dull clip-clopping of Stella’s heels. Musa kept turning back to look at her as they walked.

“Did you have to wear stilettos for this trip?” She asked finally.

“I always wear heels,” she laughed. “I mean, if we get into trouble we’re just going into fairy form, right?” 

The tunnels gave way to a large chamber. In the glow of their phone torches they could see a selection of old sagging chairs in a circle around the underground room with ancient braziers on the walls. Bloom took care not to disturb any of the furniture just in case there was a curse on it or something.

“Creepy,” Musa said, and Flora grabbed hold of her arm as they crossed the chamber. Stella looked insulted that she had to walked through the dust and dirt.

Eventually, with the help of Tecna’s map, they reached the bottom of a staircase so tall that Bloom wasn’t sure she could see the top. It was a slog to get upstairs, even using the handrail to pull themselves up. There weren’t any windows to see how high up they were either, and if Bloom hadn’t full confidence in Tecna’s skills she might have worried they were inside some kind of time loop hex.

But there was an end to the stairs. The door at the top led out onto a long, poorly lit hallway that the five of them crept down, peering through the dorm doors.

“How do we know which one their room is?” Musa hissed as she backed out of another room. “Thank god they’re all out.”

“I think I’ve found it,” Flora called, although in a stage whisper. “It smells like ogre in here.”

“Urgh,” Stella stuck her head in and balked. “It’s like thirty college boys live here and not one of them knows what a shower is. Look, there’s a photo of them.”

“The college boys?” Tecna asked, looking amused. Stella either didn’t notice or ignored the stab at her syntax.

Bloom tiptoed in last as they took a moment to look around at how the three witches lived. On the one hand, at first glance anyway, it looked like a normal room for a Magix school: three beds in neutral colours; a tall wardrobe across one wall with a large oval mirror opposite; and a cork board of pictures, mostly of the three of them in fashionably unsmiling photos. However, a second look revealed some things that Bloom wished she hadn’t seen.

On one shelf next to the board of photos was a little stuffed doll punctured by so many pins that the fabric was coming apart. Musa picked up what looked like a baton only to have spikes erupt from the tip. She shuddered and put it back down, muttering ‘this is so creepy’ under her breath.

“Okay, we have to be as quick as possible searching for the ring. There is a chance that they’ll keep it on them, but we need to make sure that it’s not here.” Tecna very carefully moved the stabbed voodoo doll off the shelf to look behind it. “But make sure not to trash the place, okay?”

They all moved as quickly and quietly as they could to turn the place upside down looking for Stella’s ring. Musa shifted books, Flora hunted through drawers, Stella searched through the clothes in the wardrobe, Tecna got on her stomach to look under the bed, and Bloom rummaged across their desks.

The longer the hunt took the more Bloom could feel her anxiety rising. The witches could be coming back any second now and they were screwed if they were caught breaking into the other school. Not to mention that if they didn’t put all the things that they moved back close enough to where they had been, the witches would know someone had been there.  
She hadn’t leant enough about that kind of magic to know if there was a way that the witches could find out it was them.

As her eyes darted across the room, convinced that someone was going to walk in at any moment and bust them, a flash of colour drew her attention to the little bin next to the desk. Bloom bent down and rummaged through the pencil shavings, scrap paper and torn up photos to pull out the Sword Ring.

“Stella?” She said cautiously. “Is this the right one?”

The princess was instantly at her side and holding out her hand to see. Bloom dropped the ring into her palm and watched Stella roll it around in her fingers.

“It looks like the right one,” she said slowly, bringing to stone up to her eye to examine it. “Feels right too. I don’t think they’d have had time to make a fake this good. Was it in the bin?!”

Stella was outraged and Musa had to stop her from going back to the wardrobe and shredding the clothes in there.

“You can’t cut them up, they’ll know we were here!” She hissed.

“I don’t care! Those bitches!”

“No, you really can’t. Besides, those are the wrong scissors for it anyway!” Stella let the paper scissors be taken out of her hands and furiously clutched her ring to her chest.

“Great,” Tecna said, waving them towards the door. “We have what we came for and now we really need to leave. Quickly, please.”

Stella was still muttering under her breath as they left and made their way back to the hidden door that they had come out of. Tecna examined the wall and then let out a quiet ‘fuck’. Bloom craned her neck to see what was making her swear. The door was no longer there, it wasn’t that it was disguised; it simply was no longer there.

“We’ll just have to find a different way out,” Tecna said, turning back around and getting her palmtop back out to load the map.

“I can just use my Sword Ring,” Stella suggested, poised to throw her jewellery up into the air to summon it’s sceptre form.

“No, don’t!” Flora hissed. “Cloud Tower is protected by many spells that would do horrible things to us if we tried to use direct magic to escape.”

“Urgh, fine, I won’t save the day. Tecna, where we going?”

Cloud Tower’s architecture didn’t seem to make sense as they followed their plan B exit from the school. Bloom could swear that some of the higher floors were much too big for the floors below them but she decided not to question it in that instant.

As they descended a wide staircase Bloom thought she saw a spider-like creature crawling around the rafters but it vanished before she could get a good look at it. Surely its body hadn’t deen massive eye?

“In here,” Tecna said, dipping into what looked like a badly organised library or store room.

“What is this place?” Bloom asked, looking at the piles of books covered in filth and cobwebs. The dust jackets of all of them were faded and dark, like they were all decades old. All with titles that looked either ominous (“Foulest Hexes for the Male Species”) or seemed to be the names of people. She wondered if that was the author or just a tradition witches used when writing their books.

“I’d guess it’s one of their libraries,” Flora said, looking around uncomfortably.

“Yeah, witches are notoriously badly organised. It can throw their magic off to be too neat. Typically anything they don’t need now or know what to do with, they’ll just throw out of the way for later and then maybe forget about.” Musa tiptoed around a large, looming statue of an angry looking woman as she tried not to even brush up against it.

“Why do they have people names?” Bloom was sure one was called ‘Maggie Braethwaite’.

“Supposedly witches keep books on people alive that they might come into conflict with. Hey Stella, I bet there’s one on you in here,” Musa was laughing but she didn’t look happy. Bloom could have sworn she saw the princess’ ears prick up at the idea that someone was writing about her.

“Hey,” Bloom said, before Stella could start to say anything first. “Do you think they have a book on me in here? I’m not very important but I don’t know how I got my powers and maybe the witches do?”

“I’m not sure that that’s a good idea,” Flora said gently. “You might not find anything and anything that there is, you have no insurance that it will be true.”

“Can I at least try and find it? It would be a new book because I’m quite young, so it should stand out…”

“We really don’t have the time,” Tecna began to say, waiting impatiently up ahead in the direction that her map was taking her. 

“I won’t take long, I promise.”

Bloom started to hunt down the rows of shelves and stacks of books. It would be shiny, she thought, and hopefully brightly coloured. She felt that a book about her would be bright, maybe a blue or a pink?

She could hear Tecna tutting at her but this was too much of a good opportunity to pass up. She had no idea who she really was or where she came from; her birth parents might have been anyone, maybe even real fairies too.

Bloom almost made it to the very far end of the room before she saw a podium faced towards her with a thin, shiny, baby blue book perched on it. The closer she got to it, the better she could read the very intricate title. It was her name, written in calligraphy and edged in a darker blue.

“Bloom!” Musa hissed. “Don’t touch it!”

“I have to know,” she said, sure that this had the answers she was looking for. Slowly, she reached out and her fingers started to lift the hardback cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter's highlight's include:  
> "You have some really funny moments, but you keep burying them in crap."  
> "...what is 'chargrinded'?"  
> "Does 'fairy maths' have an apostrophe? I'll take up fae hunting if it does."


	12. The Weirdest School Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apologies for the interruption to your regularly scheduled broadcast. The issue has been that my proof reader (Dear Husband) is applying for a very stressful job and while he has been saying that he can still do to the proofing for me, he really can't.  
> I have taken it upon myself then, to attempt to do it myself until such time as DH is able to continue or I find another editor. This means I shall be back weekly again Wednesday/Thursday (yay) but my grammar, spelling, typos, syntax, and pacing may be worse off than normal.  
> Sorry for that, but I figure it would be more appreciated for there to be slightly sub-par content rather than nothing at all.

Bloom’s fingers made contact with the embroidered cover and before she could open the book, her wrist was seized by dark green vines that wrapped all the way up to her elbow before she could react. Even pulling as hard as she could didn’t free her and the tough creepers made it to her shoulder.

“Aha!” A snarling voice boomed from the cover, a rip opening to create a hideous mouth, tendrils of darkness spill off the podium. “Did I scare you fairies?” The cackling echoed around the room from the book. Tecna lunged forward, her knife pulled out of her trouser leg, and she slashed the vines closest to the source.

“Seriously!” Stella shrieked. “Why do you carry a knife?!”

“Because this is the second time I’ve to use it around you guys!”

“This is just the beginning girls, before long you’ll regret your intrusion.” The laughing continued, as did the billowing clouds of black shadow.

“Move!” Tecna yelled as she started to run, Flora grabbed Stella’s hand and pulled while Musa seized Bloom’s arm to drag her away from the podium.

“But my book…” Bloom protested, half-heartedly, the now-dead vines falling limply off her bicep.

“Bloom,” Musa said around heavy breathing. “That book doesn’t want to be read. Come on!”

Tecna made it to the door at the other end of the room, only for it to melt away into the brickwork; leaving nothing behind. She slammed her palm angrily into the space where it had been.

“Haha!” The voice no longer sounded like it was coming from the book long left behind, instead the girls could hear it echoing all around them. “Relax, little fairies… there’s no rush! I’ve got all night to play.”

Tecna was swearing loudly as she kept running her hands over the wall, muttering something about looking up another route. Flora shook her head, still holding on tightly to Stella’s hand.

“It’s no good,” she said gently. “When under threat, Cloud Tower can change it’s architecture, all maps will be useless!”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Tecna shouted, it looked like she was starting to sweat, and her face had drained of the little colour it usually had.

“I didn’t think we counted as a threat!”

“Either way,” Musa said, holding up her hands. “What do we do now?”

“Transform?” Stella suggested.

“Transform.” They agreed.

Going into her fairy form was still an unusual feeling for Bloom. It was like climbing into a steaming hot bath, a feeling of intense heat that washed over her and soaked through her arteries, but pleasantly so. It was over in an instant - blue sparkles sending reflective shimmers onto the walls - but the feeling of euphoria that erupted in her chest with the warmth lingered long after.

She didn’t have long to enjoy the buzz though because Stella had already summoned her sceptre and directed it’s blast at the place where the door had been. Chunks of brick and pieces of mortar erupted from the impact and Bloom had to duck to avoided being hit square in the face by a flying piece of stone.

“Stella! What the hell?” Musa yelled through the cloud of brick dust that was now engulfing the room.

“Hey! I made a hole,” she said, proudly. “I’ve missed the Sword Ring.”

Bloom caught Tecna’s eye but neither of them made the decision to say anything, instead they followed the princess through the ‘doorway’ she had made and started running down the corridor behind. It seemed to stretch on forever, and Bloom had to keep the memory of the insanely long staircase in her mind so that she didn’t lose hope.

“Tell me we’re not completely lost,” she begged as they moved.

“Who knows?” Musa moaned.

“Shh!” Tecna hissed, sliding to a halt and holding up a hand to the others so that they stopped too. “Do you hear that?”

Bloom opened her mouth to ask “Do I hear what?” before the sound of many feet pattering towards them reached her ears. Before anyone could say anything, the creatures started pouring out from behind the bend up ahead. They were about the size of a medium dog; bigger than Kiko, with six segmented legs and a red streak up their orange bodies. Bloom couldn’t see any eyes and she decided quickly that that was the second worst thing about them, behind only the serrated mandibles that clicked ominously as they advanced.

“Oh my god,” Flora breathed. “Giant Mukar beetles.” 

The insects swarmed, climbing up the walls and scuttling along the ceiling. Bloom took a step back for all the good that it did: the beetles had managed to get behind them and were blocking them off from all escape.

“A barrier!” She yelled, and then realised that the other girls were now all looking at her for their next step. “We need to create a protective shield, just to buy us some time.” Tecna nodded, taking a knee and extending her hands.

“Funnel your power towards me,” she said, her green light engulfed them as Bloom tried to remember what they’d been taught in Magical Clarity. Breathe, focus, push the energy with her mind. 

The green wall, hissing out plums of cold steam, grew to completely encase them and Bloom huddled, starting to shiver, next to the others as beetles dropped from the ceiling and froze upon impact, bouncing off the shield and shattering on the floor.

It was horrifying to hear the squeals and hissing and crunching, but not as horrifying as when the bugs started to melt and reform. They were approaching from the ground as well now, walking into the barrier to freeze and then revive. Flora flinched each time a beetle died a horrible death on the subzero wall. 

Each collision of bug on shield made it ripple, beads of sweat were starting to run down Tecna’s face and she furiously wiped them away with her upper arm. She wasn’t going to last much longer at this rate.

“We’ve not got much time,” Bloom said though chattering teeth.

“I have an idea,” Flora said, and gave a smile as she started to flutter her wings. “On three, drop the barrier and fly up.”  
Flying was more exhausting than Bloom had anticipated, but it felt more natural than running, and it required much less energy than maintaining a magical wall. By the time they were all hovering five feet off the floor most of the beetles were already on the ground and had swarmed the place where they had just been. The girls stared down, surveying the scene.

“Anyone got any bug spray?” Stella asked.

“No, but I have a better idea. Musa, do you remember the spell for summoning creatures?” Flora bobbed over to where the other girl was. Bloom assumed this was from one of the advanced classes that they took together because she had no idea what they were talking about.

“It'll take quite a lot of power, but we can try, not like we have much else as an option.” The two of them joined hands and started to chant. The clicking of the beetles covered most of their incantations but Bloom thought she could make out something about ‘borrowing’ and ‘in a time until released’. There was an explosion of light and a huge (so tall that it almost filled the entire height of the corridor) woolly creature appeared. It had a bovine snout and a long tongue that constantly slid out to lick its nose and mouth.

“A Linphean bug-eater,” Flora declared proudly. “The critters natural enemy.”

The beast seemed to wake up and realise what surrounded it, dipping its head down so its long and sticky tongue could seize several bugs and pull them back into its mouth. The girls hovered in place as the bug-eater set to work feasting on the insects. Its heavy, four-toed feet crushed as many as it ate but this time the beetles didn’t seem able to regenerate, staying in an oozing, crushed pile.

Once the bug-eater had had it’s fill there was another burst of light and it was gone. Flora wiped the back of her hand across her forehead and grinned Musa.

“Phew, I’m glad that’s finished; not sure I could have kept that up much longer.”

“I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,” Bloom said, eyeing up and down the hallway. Whatever force had made itself known in the library had power over the tower itself and she doubted it would stop after a few beetles were eaten.

“Let’s not sell ourselves short.” Stella landed back on the ground, delicately placing her feet between piles of insect goo. “There was a problem and we dealt with it efficiently. Go Winx." 

“Er, Stella?” Musa eyed the puddles of dead beetle. “I think we should go.” Bloom followed her gaze and her heart sank: she had been right. While the bugs were no longer recovering from their fatal injuries, their squashed flesh was shifting and converging on a point behind them, forming a monstrosity with many protruding legs covering it’s hulking form and at least three gaping mouths filled with pointed teeth.

“Flee,” Tecna decided. All five took to the air once again, flying as fast as they could down the corridor and away from the mutated creature. Bloom’s back muscles burned in a way she hadn’t thought possible and she had to clench her fists the deal with the pain.

“Where are we going?” Musa asked from just behind her. They all looked to Tecna who shook herself.

“Straight ahead for as long as we can. I’m pretty sure Cloud Tower can’t mutate itself all the way to Alfea. If we keep heading west we’ll have to get there eventually.” Tecna sounded so sure of herself and Bloom hoped that wasn’t just for show.

The bug-thing squelched behind them, keeping pace surprisingly well for something so cumbersome. Bloom turned to look back at it and wished she hadn’t. It’s mouths, while emitted a low moaning noise, had thick and drooling tongues lolling out of them that made her stomach turn.

“Look a door!” Stella yelled, her delight quickly turning to horror as she landed next to it and discovered that there was no handle. “I hate this place!”

“A dead-end,” Musa shook her head. “What do we do now?”

“We try and hit it with all we’ve got. Group together to make a smaller target and when it gets close; blast it.” Tecna looked determined as she prepared herself and Bloom concentrated hard on the practical side of their Magical Applications class. Summon a fireball, she thought to herself, it isn’t that hard.

She was able to build up enough energy to join the other four in unleashing her magic at the franken-insect, Tecna throwing up yet another shield so that they weren’t hit by flying legs of sparks from the explosions.

When the wall went down, Bloom could see the smouldering remains and she hoped that, this time, it wasn’t going to get back up to follow them again. The smell was awful, like someone had dowsed old tyres in gasoline and lit them on fire. It burn her nostrils and she resisted the urge to cover her nose and mouth with her hands.

“What next?” Musa asked, bending over to rest her hands on her knees and take a breather. This was more magic than any of them had ever had to do in one go before.

“We have a problem,” Stella indicated the handle-less door. Rolling her eyes, Tecna moved her out of the way and charged it; her shoulder connected with the door and in burst open, inwards to the room that it was guarding. “Not anymore.”

Tecna picked herself up off the floor, dusting herself down, as they all peered through the doorway. It looked like the backroom of any charity shop; piles of books and boxes and assorted crap were dumped all over the place and there was a healthy layer of dust covering everything. They’d stumbled upon another junk room, although this one was even less organised than the library they’d been in.

Flora picked her way through the decaying cardboard boxes and made the mistake of breathing in too deeply; trying to stifle a cough left her bent over and spluttering. Musa rubbed her back sympathetically.

“God, why does no one clean anything in this school?” She poked a suspiciously damp box and one side crumpled, a white wet goo leaking out. “Eww!” Musa pulled Flora away from it quickly.

“What is that?” Stella took their place to stare at the fluid dripping out.

“Why would you get close to it?” Musa was clutching Flora’s arm to her chest, looking on in horror as Stella leaned in and opened up the top of the box.  
Bloom could see, almost in slow motion, that this was going to be a mistake. Whatever curiosity had gripped Stella, it wasn’t going to be enough to outweigh the disgust at what was actually inside. It couldn’t be anything pleasant. She was braced, therefore, when Stella shrieked and jumped back.

“It’s a spider’s nest!” 

And she had disturbed it. Arachnids the size of golf balls started to crawl out from their home, and Bloom came to the unsettling realisation that these were the babies and, somewhere, there had to be parents. 

Stella pointed her sceptre at the box overflowing with spiders and threw an intense ball of light at the bugs, the heat of the sunbeam igniting the dry paper and setting the critters on fire and not missing a single one.

“Did I get it?” She asked, as the flames spread from the original box to its neighbours and a pile of bone dry old books.

“Yeah, among other things!” Musa yelled, backing away from the fire as it reached an old bookcase, the resin varnish acting like the wax of a candle. It took less than ten seconds for it to have ignited half the room and Bloom was surprised by how much smoke was generated by the fire. Just breathing hurt.

“Stella! What did you do?” Tecna was holding a hand over her mouth. She reached around the back of her head to her cybernetics, something unfolding around her face to keep her eyes and mouth safe.

“I just wanted there not to be spiders!”

“Well now there are none, isn’t that great?” Musa yelled. “What the hell do we do now?”

Bloom couldn’t see the doorway they’d entered from through the flames and she wasn’t certain that it would even still be there. She backed away from the fire, wheezing and panicking. She couldn’t see anything through the black smoke now, and she was struggling to hear the other girls over the sound of the fire roaring. While she could stand the heat now, she knew that it was only going to get hotter and she wasn’t impervious to flames, that much she knew.

The fear and panic were overwhelming. Bloom was sure that they would all die here, consumed by the flames until there was nothing left of them but piles of dark ash. There would be no one alive to explain what happened and her parents would blame themselves for letting her go to Alfea.

Bloom sank to the ground, hands over her face as she couldn’t stop coughing. This was all her fault. They were all here because of her - because she made the decision to hand the ring over and then because she just had to touch that book. It wasn’t important who she was, or where she came from, and she shouldn’t have risked everyone’s life for curiosity. She wasn’t anyone important, if she was she wouldn’t have been left on Earth or given up for adoption. They were going to die and it was all because of her.

“Bloom.”

A voice, clear as day as and if there wasn’t an inferno around them, and different from the one from the book spoke her name. It was calm and soft, reassuring in the same way that talking to her mum was.

“Come, follow my voice.” It said. It sounded feminine, musical and happy. Bloom got to her feet, she trusted the voice implicitly and walked towards where she thought it was coming from. “Come with me, follow me. I will lead you to safety.”

There was a large metal disk hanging on the wall, kind of like a manhole cover but much bigger and more ornate, carved to look like a distorted face with a serrated mouth. Was the owner of the voice behind the disk? Bloom pressed her hand to what she thought was the nose and the mouth opened to reveal a passageway out.

“Bloom?” It was Stella this time, not a disembodied voice. Her hand on her shoulder pulled Bloom out of her calm trance. There was still fire everywhere, no time to waste. “What are you doing?”

“Tunnel!” Flora gasped, leaning on Musa.

“Are we sure we should go down that?” Stella asked, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Not looking a gift exit in the mouth,” Tecna said from behind the mask protecting her face. “Move, now.”

Bloom, still disorientated by whatever had been speaking to her, was pushed through first and quickly discovered that, while the first few feet were horizontal, the rest of the tunnel was like a giant helter-skelter and she was sliding down on her bottom. She could hear the others close behind her as she picked up speed, hurtling down the slide and colliding with the walls every time there was bend.

She didn’t realise that she was almost at the end until she was there and she landed in a heap in the cool dirt of the underground tunnels. There wasn’t any time to collect herself and her bruised and battered body before Tecna joined her, landing on her with a thump. There was a beat, in which both of them rolled out of the way before the other three landed in the spot they’d just been in.

Slowly, they all got to their feet, groaning and started to walk. Tecna got her palmtop back out and sighed in relief when she was able to find them on the map again. It seemed that, while Cloud Tower itself was able to shift its structure, that didn’t apply to the catacombs that connected the schools. Thank god.

“So,” Stella said, reverting back from her fairy form. “How did you know to do that?” She slung an arm around her friends shoulder and Bloom slumped under her weight. She was exhausted and all she wanted to do was sleep for three days when they got back.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I just heard this voice calling to me and it led me to that cover and the slide. It showed me the way to safety.”

“Well, whatever it was, it got us out of a hotspot, that’s for sure,” Stella laughed, seemingly not worried at all that Bloom was hearing voices.

“Oh yeah,” Musa said. “Thanks for that, Stella. You almost roasted us all alive because you were scared of a spider.”

“Not just one spider, a whole nest.”

“Like that makes it any better!”

“We succeeded though,” Stella shrugged, stretching out her fingers to admire her retrieved jewellery. “We’re all alive and we have my ring back rom the witches. Winx have got the power.”

“I see you’ve decided to adopt the name whole heartedly,” Tecna observed, not looking up from the map she was following. “Do you actually like it or are you just trying to piss Amaryl off?”

“I started saying it ironically to piss her off but now it’s in my head and I can’t get it out.”

They all traipsed back through the dark tunnels until they reached the back of the supplies closet and had to push passed miscellaneous craft materials and the odd mop and bucket to get out. 

Bloom needed to crawl into bed but thought she probably ought to see the school nurse first: Tecna was the only one who wasn’t still coughing and Bloom knew from her dad that smoke inhalation could kill you a good few hours after the incident.

She stumbled out of the cupboard and straight into the crisp green smock of Griselda who was holding a torch pointed directly at them with a look of seething anger on her face.

“Oh.” Was the only thing Bloom could say.

“‘Oh’ indeed young ladies. The Headmistress is eager to see you in her office now; you all have some explaining to do.”

Bloom’s heart sank but she was too tired and drained for her to really feel anything else, she just hoped that they weren’t all about to get expelled. How would she explain that to her parents back in Gardenia?

They were ushered into Faragonda’s office, the room illuminated by a pair of blue-light lamps on her desk that lit up her face in a way that indicated that they were in some serious trouble. She looked at the girls from over the top of her glasses and gave an exasperated sigh.

“I’ve just got off the phone with Headmistress Griffin from Cloud Tower. Apparently five of my students broke into her school and tried to steal from the library. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to receive a call like that?” She asked. “What possible reason could you have had to go to a place I expressly forbid and put yourself in danger? And what in heaven’s name were you doing rummaging around in the library?”

“We were attempting to get Stella’s ring back,” Tecna said bluntly. “What? I’m not gonna lie.” She shot a look over at the princess and Musa who were staring at her, flabbergasted.

“And why was Stella’s ring in Cloud Tower in the first place?”

“Because the witches stole it.”

“I see,” Faragonda raised a single white eyebrow at Tecna who, to her credit, did not flinch away. “And why was your first instinct upon discovering that a priceless artefact had been stolen, not to report it to the Magix police and to the school?”

“Because I didn’t want them too,” Stella muttered, twisting her foot against the floor in obvious discomfort.

“I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour in my institution. I am willing to give you all a second chance, but if you interfere with those witches again I will have all of you out, no ‘ifs’, ‘ands’ or ‘buts’. And as for your punishment… what do you recommend, Griselda?”

“For something so brazenly reckless I believe that their punishment should be exemplary.” The head of discipline crossed her arms over her chest. “Not only should they be grounded within the school complex but their magic powers should be bound too until they can be trusted with them again.”

“Ms Faragonda!” Stella exclaimed. “You couldn’t do that!?”

“No? I think Griselda’s suggestion is a good fit for the stunt you pulled.”

They all waited in her office while the spell to bind their powers was readied. Its was a complex process that involved Faragonda syphoning off some of it into a crystal ball and using that to lock their magic out of their reach. It was a horrible experience; Bloom felt cold, like the temperature of the room had dropped by several degrees and there was an aching in her muscles like she had spent the previous day doing one exceptionally intense work out.

They were about to be dismissed by Griselda when the headmistress held up her hand and pointed at Flora who’s cough was by far the worst.

“What is wrong with your lungs,” she asked, her face showing that she already feared the answer that they were going to give.

“Smoke inhalation,” Tecna said bluntly. Faragonda closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips together, trying to squash down the rage that was building inside her. Bloom felt ashamed to see her mentor so repulsed by her actions.

“I’m not going to ask how that came about and instead I’m just going to send you to the nurse’s office to get checked out. Take the next day off from school to recover but I expect you all to be on your best behaviour from now on. Not a toe out of line.”

Griselda led the way to Ofelia’s office, her torch pointed sternly in front of her and none of the girls uttering a word until they got there. The deputy head left them to be treated by a confused and sleepy nurse.

“Maybe if you hadn’t challenged her she wouldn’t have been so hard on us?” Flora lamented as she was put to bed in one of the rollered hospital beds.

“I don’t think that would have changed a thing,” Tecna shook her head. “I bet Faragonda knows exactly what happened and that’s the reason we’re not packing our bags to go home right this instant.”

“She must think we’re all naive for falling for that trick with ‘Bloom’s’ book,” Musa shook her head. “Someone had to have been watching us to have placed a trap like that.”

“I bet it was Griffin herself,” Stella declared. “Witches are all the same, bet she found it really funny that we were all almost burnt to a crisp.”

Bloom sat on her own hospital bed, shivering under the extra blanket Ofelia had given her. It wasn’t all that weird for her to be without magic; after all she’s spent almost all of her life without using any, but she felt bad for everyone else. Not to mention, even though the three witches had thrown the ring out, they might still know that they’d been in their room and come for revenge.

And when they did, the Winx wouldn’t have any of their powers to defend themselves.


	13. The Weirdest Party Ever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! On time.   
> However, I still had to edit myself so have fun with typos and sentences that might not make sense.

They had to check in with Griselda and Faragonda every morning during their grounding. They had time sheets that they had to fill in each and every hour with whatever member of staff was supervising them and the headmistress always wrote her name in first thing before breakfast.

“Bloom?” Faragonda said as the girls were leaving. “Could you stay behind please?”

Awkwardly, Bloom trotted back to the desk as the other girls left. She was sure that her worry showed on her face; was she going to get punished further because of how she had acted with the book? It had been all her fault that they had been put in so much danger.

“Don’t look so concern!” The Headmistress laughed. “We just need to have a pastoral session, that’s all.”

“Oh, right,” Bloom mumbled. That was a relief, although she was still feeling guilty for disappointing her mentor.

“I obviously know that you’re having some issues,” Faragonda raised her eyebrows as she rifled through some papers on her desk. “But I wanted to check in with how you are, in your studies and your personal life. You’re preparing your project for the end of term exam, have you had any luck choosing what you want to do for it?”

Bloom’s mind went blank. With everything that had been going on with Stella, Stella’s ring, the witches, and then their punishment she hadn’t even chosen a topic yet. There were four options that required an essay, an interview, and a practical simulation, but she could only remember two of them: choosing a common hex favoured by witches and discuss how to resolve it or discuss how magic could be used to heal damaged environments. She didn’t know much about the hexes witches used, and, prompted by Faragonda’s expectant face, she blurted out the first thing that sprang to mind.

“I was thinking of doing my project on how it might be possible to revive a dead planet, specifically Domino,” she said. Bloom was mildly impressed with how confident she sounded; not at all like she had just decided how she would be spending countless hours of her school time right that second.

Faragonda looked surprised but smiled and nodded.

“You’ve chosen to make things a little harder for yourself by using a dead planet as your subject, but I should imagine that it’ll be something that interests you. Why did you decide on Domino, if I may ask?”

Damn. It had been the first thing to spring to mind, that was how she had decided but that wasn’t an appropriate answer. Scrambling through her memories, Bloom picked out something that Stella had said about it.

“It’s a frozen planet now but it used to be tropical and a lot of its population had fire or heat magic so I thought my powers might lend themselves well to it?” She didn’t sound so sure of herself this time, but Faragonda nodded again.

“Yes, your flames will counteract the ice quite nicely. I look forward to seeing your finished essay and observing your simulation. How are you finding your homesickness?”

Bloom spent another ten minutes or so telling Faragonda how she was feeling (mostly alright but missing her Sundays with her parents) although she decided to leave out the sudden, intense comfort that had come from the mystery voice, the calm that had led her to find the way out. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to keep it a secret, but it felt personal, special to her, and she didn’t want to share it with anyone who might ruin it. What is if wasn’t unique to her; what if it some spirit that lived in Alfea and helped out students from time to time?

She joined the others at their breakfast table and ate her cereal quickly so that they weren’t waiting for her. Stella was packing away her food; ever since their powers had been sealed the princess had been exhausted, and had been topping up her energy levels with copious amounts of food. Tecna was pretending not to notice Stella stealing her hash browns.

As breakfast neared its close, Faragonda stood up to say some words like she always did, but this time also had an announcement.

“This evening, at the Magix Auditorium, the Living Orchestra of Andros is performing,” she paused as there were gasps and a few whoops. Bloom looked around, she had no idea what a Living Orchestra was but it seemed exciting. Faragonda continued when the noise had died down. “And the whole of Alfea College has been invited as special guests. I have spoken to all your teachers and we agree that this is an opportunity not to be missed; you will not have any homework set tonight so that you can enjoy this experience to its fullest. I expect to see some lovely costumes from you.”

The whole room started to talking immediately and Bloom almost missed Griselda standing up and demanding that they come over after they were finished with their food.

“Damn,” Stella said. “This means we can’t go, doesn’t it?”

“Obviously: we’re grounded.” Tecna gave her a look that was a little on the scathing side as she picked up her jacket.

“A girl can dream.”

The five of them gathered in front of the teachers’ table as the professors finished up, and waited for Griselda to address them.

“Since you are grounded you will not be leaving the school premises tonight. Instead you have been assigned an appropriate cleaning task, which will be overseen by Professor Palladium,” Griselda’s eyes slid over to the other teacher and he winced under her gaze. “Since he apparently has little interest in music and is awaiting the results of one of his experiments.”

“Yes, the Glowing Violet is expected to bloom under the moon any night now and I-”

“So you shall go about your school day and then report to my office at quarter to six, just before everyone else leaves,” she said, appearing not to notice that she had cut her colleague off.

Bloom found it hard to be too jealous of the other girls as they waxed lyrical about this concert; she was far too drained and ashamed to really want to go out that night. She just wanted to finish her work and chores and then go to bed. Musa, however, was seething.

She had been following the Living Orchestra for years, apparently, and it was kind of like a concert, kind of like a party, going to see them. It was an experience that would never be forgotten and cherished forever, was how she described it to Bloom.

This long lasting topic of conversation was starting to grate on Stella, Bloom could see. They’d been split into two groups for the cleaning; Flora and Tecna taking the dusting and polishing of the trophy room, and the other three mopping one of the lecture theatres. Well, it was supposed to be the three of them; the princess was sat on one of the steps on her phone and occasionally sighing and rolling her eyes at what Musa was saying.

“Do you want to stop complaining and help?” She eventually snapped at Stella. “It would go a lot faster if all three of us were cleaning.”

“I don’t want to break a nail, these were very expensive.”

“You don’t have to use your hands, use a mop.”

“I’ll get blisters!”

“Wear gloves!”

“Rubber is bad for my skin.”

The other two girls were breathing in each other’s faces as Bloom watched their back and forth. Stella was being decidedly stubborn and Bloom knew there was only one way to make her see reason: humour. Or, in this case specifically, slapstick.

The princess was just about to start another retort when the sopping wet sponge his her square in the chest. Stella made an ‘ooft' noise and looked at the culprit in horror.

“Oh my god! Why would you do that?!”

“Nice one!” Musa was bent over laughing at their soggy friend and so missed the warning signs of Bloom scooping water out of her bucket and flinging it at her too.

“I’ve got some for you too, Musa,” she laughed. Musa and Stella, both dripping from her attack exchanged a look before they both dived for their own buckets.

When Palladium, followed close behind by Flora and Tecna, found them ten minutes later they were all drenched and sat in their own puddles. He smiled cheerily as he clutched a stack of papers to his chest before his face dropped as he looked around the room.

“Hi girls, I - what happened here?”

“What you are witnessing,” Stella said, shaking some suds out of her hair. “Is the aftermath of a very intense fight, which I definitely won, by a landslide!”

“Like hell you did!” Laughed Musa as she got to her feet and offered a hand to Bloom.

“Well… er, I see. I’m going to be in my laboratory this evening, waiting to see if my Glowing Violet will bloom - oh, bloom, Bloom, very funny - so if you need me, just knock on my door.”

The professor left to watch his plant, while Tecna and Flora surveyed the mess that was still to clear up.

“We’re never going to finish this,” Flora said, shaking her head. “We’re going to be here all night.”

“No we won’t,” Stella grinned at her from where she was still lying on the floor. “I’ve been texting Sky.”

“And how does that help?” Musa was wringing her shirt out and looking around for her mop.

“Well, being the gracious and gentlemanly prince that he is, he has offered the help of himself and his friends so that we can get things done and them maybe all hang out after that, Riven would come too,” Stella winked at Musa who blushed scarlet.

“Is that a good idea?” Tecna folded her arms and was frowning at the princess.

“Hey,” Bloom said. “They said we weren’t allowed to leave, not that we couldn’t have guests.”

“Come on, Tecna!” Stella was getting up from the floor. “No one’s going to be back for like three hours and Palladium isn’t going to be leaving his lab for love nor money. They’ll help us clean and then we can put some music on and order some pizza.”

Tecna relented and went to find more cleaning supplies with Flora before they all got changed in their suite. Bloom had thought she’d done a good job picking out her clothes, but Stella took one look at the dress she’d taken out of the closet and thrown a top and skirt at her.

“Brandon likes skirts, and so does Riven, apparently.” Stella nudged Bloom as she said the last part loudly enough that Musa tossed away the shorts she’d been holding up to herself.

Tecna was the only one who wasn’t running around madly reapplying makeup and comparing shoes. She had changed into clean clothes and was standing in the middle of the suite looking at the chaos with a disgruntled look on her face.

“Why are we getting changed before we’ve done the cleaning?” She asked.

“Because why waste time when the boys are here?” Stella laughed, sliding an ornament into her hair. Tecna tried to make eye contact with Flora as if to say ‘surely you think they’re being crazy too?’ only for her to grin apologetically and put in her larger gold earrings.

“Aren’t you excited to see Timmy?” She asked, looking a little guilty.

“Why would I be? We won’t be playing video games.”

The boys arrived on their bikes, leaving them locked up against the outside wall, and Bloom tried to breathe normally as she saw Brandon take his helmet off and free his hair. Stella bounced over to Sky and kissed his cheek.

“Are you able to rescue us?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Of course,” he said, and then his voice dropped. “But we may have had to tell a few whose lies to Riven to get him here.”

Riven certainly looked unimpressed when they took the boys into the lecture theatre that still needed to be mopped, but he sullenly crossed his arms while Flora explained what needed to be done and didn’t say anything when he was handed a scrub brush.

“Just soap, rinse, dry and then done. Easy,” Stella declared, as if she hadn’t been complaining about it an hour earlier.

“I’ll put some music on and it’ll make the time go faster.” Musa hooked up her phone to her bluetooth speakers and put on a playlist.

The nine of them made their way through the lecture theatres that needed cleaning and finished their job list in under an hour. The place was sparkling from their efforts, even if that was just Bloom’s own opinion, and they settled into one of the less-used classrooms to order their pizza and put on the music again.

Stella ended up ordering way too much since she was trying to avoid the tension that was still palpable between Riven and Brandon that threatened to flare up with their different requirements for pizza. It looked like they were trying to cater a party of a hundred, not one for less than ten, but Bloom decided against saying anything as she ate a slice. 

Stella was dancing with Sky in a way that was not appropriate, Flora was dancing next to Musa who was definitely trying to get Riven’s attention (who looked wooden in this situation), and Tecna was sat down in the corner with Timmy.

“Drink?” Brandon asked, offering her a plastic tumbler of the cola that had come with their order.

“Thanks,” she said, trying to suppress a little jump when her fingers brushed his. He was warm, and he smiled at the contact. 

Wildly, from a position Sky couldn’t see, Stella was sending her facial expressions that clearly said ‘now is your chance’ and ‘what’s stopping you?’. Buoyed on by her friend’s encouragement,   
Bloom accepted Brandon’s offer to dance and tried to just let the mood take her rather than focus on how exactly she was moving her body. Every so often, he would touch a hip or a shoulder and she just wanted to reach out a kiss him, and maybe she would have if there hadn’t been other people in the room.

Over in the corner, Timmy and Tecna were still sat together in the corner eating their pizza, him looking over at her blank face every so often.

“Do you want to dance?” He asked awkwardly, shuffling so that he was facing her more front on.

“No thank you,” she said, sucking the sauce off her fingers. “I don’t like dancing; it makes me feel very awkward.”

“You and Timmy both,” Riven snorted as he reached for another slice of the pizza bought specifically for him. He seemed impervious to her glare. “He’s awkward with everything.”

“Yeah fuck off, Riven.” If he had heard or was bothered by her barb, he didn’t give any indication as he walked away to lean on the far wall and brood.

Bloom was distracted from her dance partner by Lady growling, which set Kiko off too. Both dogs ran to the window, loud yaps misting up the glass, and Sky laughed in embarrassment as he tried to pull his dog away. Bloom scooped up Kiko, who let out one last defiant bark, and rubbed his ears to quiet him down.

As she stood back up with her dog, she noticed the soft glow of some kind of light from the garden outside. It was a weird colour; definitely not one of the flood lights or the light from a phone, and she nudged Stella to come look.

“What’s that?” Bloom asked, still wrestling to keep Kiko in her arms.

“I don’t know,” Stella pressed her face up to the glass but the light faded as she did. “Maybe it was the dumb plant that Palladium is waiting for?”

“But that’s in the green house by his lab,” Flora pointed out.

“Then I really don’t know,” Stella shrugged, she looked around at the room. “I don’t know why you people think I’m the expert.”

They went back to their eating and dancing for a few minutes, Lady being tied to a table with her lead, before they were interrupted again, this time by the sound of glass shattering and a loud crash.

“Okay, what the hell?” Riven opened the window and stuck his head out. “Is that a sofa?”

“What?!” Musa opened the panel next to his and peered through too. “Come look!”

A large, maroon love seat had been expelled through one of the first floor windows and had tumbled down until it hit the stone ground in the quad outside, breaking into two uneven pieces. 

There was a beat and then the ground shook as if there was a small earthquake rocking the school.

Both Sky and Riven were out of the door and running to where the noise had come from, Brandon and Timmy not far behind them. The girls followed, kicking off their heels so that they weren’t too far behind.

The mini-quake had been caused by something colliding with the corridor wall, leaving a hefty imprint in the plaster. Not just a dent, but slashed as well, from about two feet up to just below the ceiling and Tecna ran her fingers over the crevices at her eye level.

“Whatever made this was a huge creature.”

“Oh goodness, I never would have guessed!” Riven rolled his eyes at her, his sword hilt in his hand but the blade not out. Tecna narrowed her eyes at him in distaste.

“It’s approximately two point five meters tall and weighs close to a tonne. It’s fur is blue and bristly, it has horns and six limbs, four of which are clawed. It also has a strong, musky body odour,” she snapped. “Now, is that better?”

“Way to go, Tecna,” Stella laughed. Any retort that Riven had against either girl was lost when there was another alright shake further down the hall.

“Let’s go.” Sky’s phantoblade was out and he was running. The other boys ran close behind him as Stella sighed and took a second before chasing him too.

“Hey, wait for us!” She called after them.

“Stay behind!” Bloom heard Riven yell. “You haven’t got any powers; you’ll just be in the way.”

There was a collective decision to ignore him and follow them anyway. What, they were just going to wait around and see if the monster found them before the boys found it? Bloom reasoned that it was a much better idea to stick together, no matter how much it might annoy Riven.

When they caught up they were in an utterly destroyed classroom. Timmy had produced a chemlight and was holding it up so that the others could see more clearly. Desks had been smashed into piles of splinters, glass from displays littered the floor, and the remnants of chairs were imbedded in the walls. As the girls filed in, Sky tilted his head up and moved Timmy’s arm so that a large hole in the ceiling was revealed.

“He went up that way.”

“What the hell is going on?” Musa breathed, looking around the devastated room. The boys stayed behind to give the room a more thorough look over while the girls tiptoed out and walked up the stairs to the next floor. The rampage so far seemed to have tripped a fuse box somewhere because this level was completely out of lights, the bulbs hanging useless in their fixtures.

“I can’t hear anything anymore,” Bloom said as they walked.

“Maybe it was a wild animal?” Flora suggested. “Magical creatures can get very distressed and destructive in certain circumstances.”

“I bet it’s a fashion monster come to destroy Amaryl’s wardrobe,” Stella snorted, and Musa groaned as they rounded a corner. 

“What the…?” Musa took several steps back as the creature that had been hiding in the darkness turned around to face them.

From Bloom’s Earth frame of reference, she would have likened it to a minotaur. It was humanoid (sort of, if being bipedal counted) with a bull-like face and horns and hoofed feet. Unlike the Greek legend that she was familiar with, though, was the coarse blue hair that covered it and the extra set of muscled arms that it was brandishing at them.

Still six feet in front of them, the beast opened its mouth and let out a ground-shaking roar. Its spit flew everywhere, dispersing its foul smelling breath at the girls, and Musa retreated further leaving Stella up front.

“Gross!” She shouted, staring at the creature. “You are a gross, stinky beast!”

“Stella! We don’t have our powers!” Bloom hissed, grabbing onto her arm and pulling her away from the snarling minotaur. The princess was still looking it in the eye and that struck Bloom as a terrible idea; the thing didn’t look like a predator (things with horns and hooves were generally prey animals that used their weaponry for defence) but that just meant it would be prepared to fight hard to stay alive if it thought they were a threat. And Stella certainly looked aggressive with her body language.

It took another deep breath, and then it was roaring and charging. Bloom didn’t need any encouragement to run as fast as she could away from it; she wished she had her powers, if only so that she could fly.

“Quickly!” Tecna yelled and yanked open a door to a lecture theatre, ushering them inside. The closed door only bought them so much time, however, because within the next few seconds the creature was bursting through the wall as if it were a sheet of paper and not made of brick.

Dust and debris flew everywhere, and Bloom could only just make out the huge thing lunging at Tecna through the fine particles in the air. Before she could call out, the two giant horns had imbedded themselves in the wall where Tecna had been just a few moments ago. Fortunately, though, the other girl had managed to dodge out of the way while the minotaur thrashed around, stuck in the other wall.

Four of the girls were cowering away from it as it struggled against the brickwork, Flora recovering from her run in four inch platforms, but Stella appeared to not have learnt her lesson. She was taking the minotaur’s presence quite personally, it would seem.

“Look at you,” she smirked. “All helpless and stinky.”

“Don’t antagonise it!” Tecna pleaded, but it was too late. 

The beast got loose and the girls were running again, out of the lecture theatre, down the corridor and to the stairs. Hurrying down, Bloom could see the boys on the landing below and was about to call out to them when she heard a scream.

Musa had been at the back, running the slowest since her shoes were the least practical out of all of them. The minotaur had caught up with her enough that it had been able to punch her in the back and send her flying. She collided hard with the bannister and toppled over the edge before anyone could grab her, she dropped with another scream and Bloom froze.

Her body was surprisingly still as it fell. But fortunately, that only made it easier for for Riven to catch her, braced well enough that her weight looked like nothing in his arms. There was a moment, as Musa stirred a little, before the rest of them kept moving.

By the time they reached the landing where the boys were, creatures still hot on their heels, Riven had been able to return Musa to her feet and had taken his sword out. The other three guys joined him, weapons ready.

“Now this is my kind of party,” Riven said.

In the confined space it was hard for them to manoeuvre but at least that meant that it was hard for the giant thing to move too. The boys were dodging the flailing fists and sharp horns well, but it meant that there was very little opportunity for them to wound it. Riven and Sky kept getting in each others way too, and it was clear that the Prince was really agitating his teammate.

“Watch out for your lord, Brandon,” he snapped as he leapt out the way of a hoofed foot.

“Riven, watch out!” Brandon’s warning was too late, however, as the other guy was punched through one of the decorative glass dividers in the hall. There was an alright crash as he went through it and disappeared behind the tinted glass.

There was little time for them to do anything to help him, however, as the beast kept up is onslaught. Bloom looked at Tecna helplessly.

“We have to do something!” She said. It was hard to watch them get pummelled, Brandon especially; Bloom had only just discovered her powers and she wanted to protect her friends not just stand by uselessly.

“What can we do?” Flora whispered.

There was a whistle and the girls turned to see Stella carrying the buckets they’d been using to mop the floors.

“I have an idea ladies.”

Bloom liked to believe that she had faith in her friend, but Stella’s observation that the minotaur’s hooves had little purchase on the stone floor and that soapy water was an excellent lubricant, was a little surprising she had to admit. It was an idea that she would have thought Tecna would come up with rather than their princess.

The empty buckets, when whacked with the mops, made quite the loud noise too and the beast seemed incensed by the banging and clattering that they made.

The plan included, of course, more running, but Bloom was still full on adrenaline as they were chased away from the boys and towards the large, wet patch of floor. They all pressed themselves into the dips in the walls as the minotaur reached the soapy puddle. Bloom had to admit thats being a creature so monstrous and tall suddenly slip and start whizzing passed them was more darkly comical than she had imagined. She also was not prepare for it to skid quite so far, hurtling off the end of landing and plummeting several floors down and into the foyer. Its legs twitched several times and then went still.

The nine of them gathered on the ground floor to observe the creature of for Tecna to pronounce it alive but unconscious. Bloom took a tentative step forward to get a closer look, noting the hot breath that was still being blown out of the slitted nostrils, and recoiled from the wave of negative energy that she felt from the beast. Looking to Stella she wordlessly asked a question.

“Yeah,” the princess nodded. “I feel it too.”

“What’s this?” Sky asked.

“There’s loads of negative energy around the creature,” Musa cut in to explain. “Not dissimilar to the troll, actually.”

“Does that mean whoever sent this one might have had something to do with the troll then?” Brandon asked and Stella nodded.

“Faragonda has a crystal ball in her office that watches over the school, and while it is very much against the rules to go into her office it’s probably the best course of action if the ones that set him loose are still in the school,” Tecna said.

Bloom led the way up to Faragonda’s office, thankful that the door simply pushed open when she tried it. The office was dark, no light switch could be located, and the shadows made the usually homely and quaint room look sinister. Bloom took a cursory glance around the room to see if the crystal ball was obvious before she started to feel a creeping sense of fear crawling over her skin.

“Everybody!” She hissed. “Hide!”

Riven attempted to protest but Tecna seized his arm and forced him behind the standing mirror with her. Bloom, Brandon and Stella crouched behind the desk while Musa and Flora took a curtain each and Sky and Timmy got in the tall wardrobe.

From underneath the low bottom of the desk, Bloom watched as the door opened, a ball of cracking yellow light floating in followed by three hovering figures. She held her breath as she realised that it was the three witches.

“That’s odd,” she heard Icy say. “Why does the vacuum think that the Dragon Flame is in this room? I don’t see anything so I guess we’ll just have to trash the place until we find it.” 

“We won’t let you!” Bloom stood up from behind the desk, Icy’s eyes widening when she saw her.

“What are you doing here?” Darcy demanded.

“No, what are you doing here?” Stella said, getting up and pulling Brandon with her.

“That was what I was going to ask all of you.”

They all, the witches, the boys and the fairies, turned to see Faragonda walk in, followed by Griselda and Wizgiz. The headmistress clapped and the lights came on.

“Up until a moment ago I was under the impression that this was my office, but then again, I also wasn’t expecting there to be a large minotaur in my foyer either. Palladium is quite disturbed.”

“You might not believe this,” Bloom said, smiling awkwardly. “But we can explain.”

The boys were sent back to Red Fountain, the minotaur trussed up in magic ropes and towed, unconscious, behind their bikes. Faragonda was surprisingly courteous towards them; thanking them for their help in subduing the creature and keeping her girls safe, she even volunteered a letter of recommendation to Professor Saladin for them too. She did mention to the girls, however, that she usually expected parties to happen when students were not ground and had already finished their chores although there was no more punishment that followed.

“As for you three,” Faragonda turned her attention to the sullen witches still standing next to Griselda. “I will be sending you back to Cloud Tower for Mistress Griffin to deal with. This feud between you and may girls has gone on long enough; and someone could have been seriously hurt with that stunt you pulled. Tomorrow morning your Headmistress will be receiving a formal letter of complaint from me and I trust you shall be properly punished for your complete lack of sense and respect.”

She didn’t give them an opportunity to respond before she sent them away in a shimmer of white-blue light. 

The girls were dismissed with the clarification that they were not going to be punished further since Faragonda considered a tussle with a minotaur to be discipline enough. They were still on track to be free and with their powers restored by the time the Day of Rose came around in a fortnight.


	14. The Weirdest Festival Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, honestly this was a terrible chapter to go on hiatus over because Riven required so much work and I didn't know what to take out and which bits to elaborate on.  
> The hope is that I'll be back to posting weekly but life is so busy right now that I can't really promise anything

Bloom could hear her name being called. She was frozen still, her limbs not moving in the inky blackness, as the voice called for her again and again. As hard as she tried she couldn’t shake herself free of the weight on her body.

“Bloom,” it repeated. “Do you remember me? Do you remember my voice?”

Against the heaviness in her throat, she was able to call out back, her own voice weak and distant.

“Yes, you’re the one that led me out of Cloud Tower.” Compared to her own rasping, the woman sounded like an angel; just as serene and musical now as it had then, her voice was soft but reverberated around the clouds of blackness.

“Yes, yes, Bloom. Come to me, come find me.”

“Where…” Bloom’s voice was hoarse. “Where are you? Who are you?”

“I am here.”

Bright, yellow light cut through the darkness, blinding her for a moment before she was able to make out the figure in front of her. The image wasn’t clear, it was far too dazzling to get a good look, but in front of her was a woman, many times her size, masked and dressed in golden robes. Bloom felt the soft silk of her dress caress her face as the woman opened her arms and her sleeves billowed away from her. She held out her hand to Bloom.

“Come to me,” she said. “Come to me and remember.”

“Remember? What must I remember?” Bloom’s voice was stronger now, louder and more confident. But what was there to remember? The more certain she sounded the more that the obfuscating black backdrop fell away.

She didn’t get a response before she could feel the pillows under her head and the duvet over her body. Even with her eyes still closed, she knew that she was in bed and that she’d just been asleep. What a bizarre dream.

Despite the post-sleep fog and her uneasiness about the fantasy woman, Bloom went about getting ready as she normally would, and managed to get dressed and collect her books together for class before she realised her roommate was not doing the same. Well, she was dressed, but not in her normal school wear outfit: if Bloom had thought Flora dressed eccentrically before she was being forced to reevaluate her opinions on outlandish fashion.

“What’s going on?” Bloom asked as she put her books back down as casually as she could. She wasn’t in the right headspace to be teased this morning.

“It’s the Day of the Rose, remember,” Flora said happily, sliding a wreath of flowers onto her head. “everyone is going home to see their mums.”

“Oh.” Bloom vaguely remembered that she had been told about this. The Day of the Rose was like Mother’s Day, and she had remembered to send a card home to Gardenia in time for it but she hadn’t really understood that you could go home for the day for it. She probably hadn’t been listening.

“I’m off to Linphea,” her roommate said as she picked up her bag. “So I’ll see you later this evening.”

Flora hugged her and Bloom wandered out into the common room, wondering if this was going to be a very lonely day indeed since none other suite mates were from Magix and, even if any of them had been, she couldn’t just invite herself a long to another family’s special day. However, she immediately saw Stella still in her pyjamas and sulkily drinking coffee, and figured she’d have at least one person for company today.

She wasn’t all that surprised; several days ago Stella had received the news that her parents had now officially filed for divorce and as such was not eager to return home. Stella smiled forcefully as Bloom took a seat next to her.

“Not going home either,” she asked as she cuddled onto Bloom’s arm.

“No, I didn’t realise we could and its not like I can book a taxi back to Earth anyway. Is there anything to do today since I guess class isn’t on?” Stella paused for a moment and then nodded, still holding onto Bloom’s bicep.

“There’s a festival going on in town but I don’t know how great it’s going to be since almost everyone is pissing off home… but I suppose that’s better than staying in and doing nothing.”

“Everyone is going home?” Bloom had her attention directed out of the window to the mass exodus of students from the school. She’d thought that maybe some of the other girls would stay, surely at least a couple had coursework or something.

“Pretty much but us and Musa.” Bloom gave Stella a quizzical look, prompting her to motion towards the other girl’s room. “Musa lost her mum a few years ago so she’s really not feeling this holiday.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Eh,” Stella shrugged. “She wouldn’t expect you to, she just wants to chill out in her room today and listen to a music box, so we won’t disturb her.”

They decided that it was preferable to head out after a leisurely breakfast; just in case the festival was any good and because it sounded better than staying in the empty school after being grounded for so long. Bloom was handed an outfit by Stella, which she obediently put on, and they grabbed their bags and Kiko’s leash before heading down to the bus stop to take a shuttle into town.

Walking through the centre of Magix made Bloom feel like a tourist again. There were booths of local produce and flowers, a carnival had set up in the main square with games and a funhouse, and there were street performers showing off their skills. Stella had to pull her away from several entertainers so she wouldn’t be parted from all her money. They were able to reach the road that had been closed for the parade to come through and wiggle into a good spot to watch the floats come passed.

“This is the bit that’s worth not missing,” Stella assured her. “They throw rose petals absolutely everywhere and the dancers are to die for.” 

They watched as the first of the performers came down the road, dancing with ribbons in front of a large float sponsored by the Fairies for Higher Education. Stella hadn’t been kidding; flowers rained down on the spectators and the girls were swept up in a botanical storm for a few minutes. It smelt like heaven and Bloom couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

Other floats were decked out in different flowers and in many different colours of drapery, all with a sponsor of some sort. There was even one by Witches for Same Sex Parenting and Bloom thought she recognised the redheaded witch that was at the front. They’d done a pumpkin theme for some reason, with orange blossoms, and the girl was wearing a shirt with one emblazoned on the front.

There was one from a local bakery that had children in little blue outfits handing out flower-shaped cakes and sugar cookies to everyone they could reach, not to be outdone by the confectioners behind them that made it rain small, colourful sweets over the crowd. Bloom was trying to work out exactly where the deluge of candy was coming from; it wasn’t being thrown from the float and there wasn’t anyone hanging out of the surrounding buildings to drop it down. She had to assume that they’d done it with magic.

Bloom was shaken from her concentration over the origin of the sweets and where she’d seen the pumpkin witch before, by Kiko pulling on his lead away from her, hard enough that she could feel the strain on her wrist.

“Hey!” She shouted. “Kiko! What are you…?”

Her question was answered by Lady running up to sniff around her dog and then give Bloom a lick on the hand. Kiko wagged his tail and stuck his nose into his friend’s fur.

“Well hello there,” Stella said, leaning down to pet the new dog. “And if you’re here that means…”

Right on cue, Brandon came running over to them followed closely by Prince Sky who was a good few steps ahead of Riven. Stella’s beam, which had appeared as soon as she saw Sky, dropped the minute Riven came into view.

“Lady!” Brandon was smiling as he scolded his dog. “Don’t run away from me like that!” He clipped her lead back on and looked up at the girls.

“She was just coming to find us,” Bloom said, clasping her hands in front of her awkwardly. Even with a dog and a leash to hold, she was still too over-aware of her body. Brandon was looking socially good today and she wondered if he knew how well that t-shirt flattered his form.

“And who wouldn’t want to?” Stella asked, reaching out to seize Sky’s arm, pulling him closer to her so she could press her chest up against him. Bloom was pretty sure that she heard Riven mutter something under his breath that she didn’t want to ask him to repeat. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s a bike race as part of the festival and we were all going to enter,” Sky explained. “It’s not safe for us to travel home to Eraklyon right now so we’re staying in Magix for now.”

“And you?” Bloom asked, turning to Riven, who crossed his arms and looked away. It took him longer than normal to respond too.

“I didn’t feel like going home.”

His expression told her that maybe she had taken a serious misstep in asking. After all, the reasons Stella and Musa hadn’t gone home were pretty personal. Crap. What if his mum had died? Bloom willed a hole to open up beneath her and swallow her into the ground.

“What time does the race start?” Stella asked, breezing passed the sidestepped question and fixing her eyes on her prince instead. Eyelashes fluttered hard.

“Probably about half an hour from now, we’ll need to get over there soon though, we still need to sign up.” Brandon gestured for them to keep going.

“What are you going to do after the race?” Stella asked, slipping her hand into Sky’s while making sure there was minimal space between them. “And is there a prize if you win?”

“There’s supposed to be a dance after,” Brandon offered. “We could all go to that.”

Brandon and Sky were sticking close together, and Stella was still attached to her squeeze, so that meant Bloom fell behind with Riven as they tried to push through the crowds. He seemed more pensive than usual and looked less annoyed than expected when she kept being pushed into him by people going the other direction. Instead, he just gently put her back on her feet each time and didn’t say anything about it.

When he wasn’t scowling at everyone around him, Riven actually looked quite handsome. His stare had softened and she noticed that his eyes were a warm violet. It was a shame that Musa wasn’t here; if ever there was a time that he might be receptive to some flirting, it would have been now. If he’d been like this during their pre-season sporting event, or whatever they’d been doing when they met, she could totally see how her friend had fallen for him. He had the brooding bad boy thing down.

She didn’t have long to admire him before Kiko, distressed by the ever increasing distance between the group, pulled hard to try and keep up with Lady ahead of them. Bloom lurched forward, too lost in her own thoughts to be prepared for his sudden need to be close to the other dog.

“Shall I?” Riven asked in a rare display of thoughtfulness and she nodded, passing the lead over to him since this was the first genuine and non-bravo induced gesture she’d seen from him. Their hands touched as she slipped the handle around his wrist and she knew that she was going red from it. God, she needed get herself under control. He was just a boy, and not even the boy that she especially fancied. Bloom looked pointedly ahead without glancing at Riven, focusing on Stella’s bag that was half falling off her shoulder, in the hopes that the colour would fade from her cheeks.

The race had been set up to lap around a city block and the road had been cleared so that the spectators were pushed away onto the far side of the pavements. An official ran them through the rules (which Bloom barely caught half of) including that the boys weren’t allowed to use their own bikes; they had to use the vehicles provided so that the competition was as even as possible, however they were permitted their own gear while riding.

They were signed up reasonably quickly given they had their Red Fountain student cards to show which proved that they had passed at least the basic exam for their licences. Brandon went to pay for their entry while Sky and Riven inspected the bikes.

Bloom couldn’t say she was enthusiastic about the ins and outs of how the hover bikes worked (although the fact that they did, she found cool) so she just sort of loitered by the boys while they chose which one they were going to ride.

She had been letting her mind wander, back to the woman in gold from her dream, when the sound of Riven’s raised voice grounded her suddenly. Something about the coils of a widget being tighter on one bike than the other. It had been a bit too good to last: normally Sky and Riven would have been at each others’ throats from the get go, so it had been a nice change for them to be civil for a while.

“You can’t always get what you want,” Sky snapped in reply.

“Says the prince! The only reason a lot of us get stuck with what we have is because you get exactly what you want.”

“You know that’s not true!”

“Oh please, I wanted to stay in today, the only reason we’re out here doing this is because you were too scared to go home.”

“At least there were people at home who wanted me!”

Bloom recoiled from that almost as hard as Riven did. She was surprised that Sky would be so callous, even Stella looked shocked, and there was a silence that hung in the air for a few tense moments before Riven snarled.

“And at least there are people here that want me.” Bloom jumped when he grabbed her hand to try and pull her with him as he marched away, and, in reflex, tried to yank herself away from him. 

She immediately regretted doing so when she saw the look of hurt on his face before Sky started laughing and Riven stormed off.

“I think he made some assumptions,” the prince snorted, and Bloom scowled as hard as she could at him (although she knew she was not very intimidating).

“He surprised me, that’s all. There was no need to say that to him.” Sky looked a little abashed, but didn’t say anything more before Bloom spotted Brandon in the crowd and went to find him quickly before she lost her nerve and apologised for telling Sky off.

Brandon smiled and waved when he saw her and was already speaking before she properly reached him. 

“Hey,” he said, reaching out to hold onto her hand. It was reassuring to be able to grip onto him even if she wasn’t completely happy being touched right now. “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the dance after this. Er, together?”

“Oh.” Bloom needed a moment to think about that. Her mind was on how to apologise to Riven and get the two guys to stop being at each other’s throats for long enough for everyone to enjoy the day out together. “Sure…”

“It’s okay if you had plans to go with someone else,” Brandon laughed nervously. “I just thought it might be nicer to go together rather than have to on chaperone duty.”

Bloom was about to explain that her hesitation wasn’t due to any reluctance to spend time with him, quite the opposite really, it was just her thoughts were racing and she didn’t have the time to weigh up how she was feeling about actually dating again after breaking up with Andy… when her eye was caught by Riven. He was standing across the road and two partitions away from her with an expression of hurt and anger on his face.

He could see her holding hands with Brandon and she could guess well enough that he was jumping to all kinds of conclusions. But it wasn’t as if there was much she could do about it from over here. Even if she ripped her hands away from Brandon that wouldn’t help. He glared again and then disappeared into the crowd. Bloom hoped he’d still be back to participate in the race even if he didn’t intend to speak to any of them again today.

“What’s up?” Brandon was following her gaze, although he was too late to see who she had been looking at.

“I think I made a mistake and upset Riven…”

She gave him an abbreviated version of events as they made their way back to the other two and the bikes. Brandon shook his head in exasperation. He was less than thrilled by Sky’s actions but admitted there wasn’t much he could do about it. Bloom wished that his passive attitude would rub off on her.

Riven did return just in time to put his leathers on and grab his bike before the contestants were called to line up. Brandon tried to initiate conversation with him before their helmets went on, but he was waved away.

Stella took Bloom to a good spot where they could see most of the improvised race track and, most importantly, have a great view of the finish line. Bloom could tell that her friend was thinking hard, staring off at the bikers as they took off rather than make conversation as they watched.

“Sky was being a dick,” she said, finally. “I like him a lot but he was winding Riven up on purpose.”

“I feel really bad about freaking out over him,” Bloom sighed, shaking her head. “He didn’t even grab me that hard or suddenly…” Stella reached out to squeeze her shoulder briefly.

“It’s your right to control who touches you and what they do with you. If him doing that startled you, your reaction was hardly unreasonable.” She nodded firmly and Bloom smiled; Stella was having an infrequent bought of responsibility and sensibility today. And she seemed to realise this because she shook herself and moved to point out which bikes riding passed had boys they knew on them, and how cute they were under their visors.

Bloom could guess that the skill in riding this kind of hovering vehicle lay in maintaining balance and height from the ground correctly, although she was still struggling to make sense of why some manoeuvres caused certain things to happen. It was unsurprising that almost all the guys that trained at Red Fountain were ahead of everyone else, Bloom knew that they were put on intensive courses to get this good, but she still felt proud of them anyway.

Brandon had been out front for a good portion of it, with Riven and Sky vying for second place at his heels, but he took a corner… sub-optimally (she wasn’t sure if there was a technical term for what he did) and now he was behind both of them with a forth contender neck and neck.

Stella looked smug whenever Sky took the lead and huffed when he fell behind Riven. As much as Bloom was enjoying the thrill of the race, she was starting to think that maybe pitting the two boys against each other like this right now was going to turn out to be a mistake. 

They were both taking risks; going faster, taking jumps higher, getting way too close to each other. It was getting to the point that Stella looked worried, wincing at every near miss, and Bloom was sure that some of the umpires were starting to look disturbed. 

“They’re practically trying to kick each other off!” Stella hissed, gripping the rail in front of them and shaking it. “This is ridiculous.”

Bloom was glad when the guy that was in in forth place overtook the pair, closely followed by Brandon, and both boys seemed to snap out of it in an effort to try and regain their lead but it was too late, even as Riven pushed his bike to its limits. 

Mystery Guy took first place with Brandon in a close second. It looked like Sky was going to lose the rivalry for a moment, but then the power Riven had put into engine overwhelmed his steering and he collided with one of the track markers.

Bloom watched in horror as the bike crumpled and flung him forward, causing him to skid and bounce along the tarmac. Even from this far away she could see that shreds from his protective gear were being torn up by the road.

The crowd almost went silent as he came to a stop and Sky crossed the line ahead of him, followed by a few others as he picked himself up. Riven stumbled about, seemingly unable to keep his feet under him properly.

Stella tugged on Bloom’s arm.

“Let’s go down, we’ll need to see if they’re all alright.”

By the time they got down there, pushing through the crowd of slack-jawed spectators, a cluster of medics and other racers were gathered around Riven. He’s toppled over again and so they’d dragged him to one side, propping him up against the intact inner barrier and tending to the bleeding from his forehead so that it wasn’t streaming into his eyes. A dark patch was forming around the shoulder he’d landed on, not to mention the other cuts and scrapes all over his body from the friction.

The girls weren’t able to get onto the race track, the officials having wisely cordoned it off, and so watched pretty helplessly as the paramedics lay him down and started to cut away the fabric covering the shoulder wound.

“I have some healing magic!” Bloom was surprised by the voice of First Place, not just because she realised that the winner was a girl, but because she recognised her too. 

Darcy removed her helmet and gloves and went to help fix Riven back up under the instructions of the professionals. She was being uncharacteristically caring, stroking his hair and whispering what Bloom assumed were comforting words to him, her smile was soft and she was trying hard to be gentle with him. 

Bloom wondered if maybe she had misjudged the witch a little; clearly she wasn’t all bad. Perhaps Faragonda was right and the animosity between the witches and the fairies was just a hyped up school rivalry as opposed to anything that was really that personal…

“She’s up to something,” Stella declared, arms folded and eye narrowed.

“What do you mean?” 

“There’s no way that a third year witch like Darcy would be being this nice to someone she had been competing against. She’s a stone cold bitch, and I bet she thinks she’s going to get something out of this.”

Were they watching the same scene? If Darcy really was being calculating, she was hiding it exceptionally well; not caring about the blood that was staining her gloves. Bloom thought it was more likely that she felt little guilty or that she had a crush on Riven and was taking the opportunity to ingratiate herself.

In no time he was standing again, skin mended and blood being washed off with sterilised water and cotton pads. The two girls were able to get through a little further on to greet the other boys and to watch the now very awkward trophy ceremony - which was missing Darcy since she was still sticking close to Riven and seemingly oblivious to the fact that she had a gold-coloured trophy waiting for her.

“Are you guys alright?” Bloom asked tentatively, touching Brandon’s shoulder and suddenly feeling incredibly bashful at the contact. The atmosphere was uncomfortable since they were all still worried about Riven, Stella was trying her best to both ignore and monopolise the attention of Sky, and the crowd were still hanging around since the anti-climax of the awards left some question over whether the event was over or not.

“We’re okay,” Brandon said, not reacting positively or negatively to Bloom’s touch, instead looking around to see if he could pick out Riven amongst the medics making sure he was alright.

“Shall we get something to eat?” Sky asked, letting out a tense sigh and taking Stella’s hand even though she was turned away from him. The princess jumped a little but decided against shaking him off, still not giving him the satisfaction of looking at him though. 

Reluctantly, Bloom allowed the others to draw her away to one of the food stalls. It didn’t feel quite right to be getting street food when one of their friends had just been hurt but she knew that the boys had more experience with Riven than she did. The vendors were selling what she thought was similar to tempura, only on a stick with little pieces of fried squid and vegetables too, and she bought the one that was ranked least spicy and dolloped a healthy amount of garlic mayo on her paper tray next to it just in case.

Brandon, having recovered from his shock at the accident, seemed to realise that everyone was feeling on edge and made an effort to try and ease the tension. He got Stella laughing at his impression of the race official and complimented one of Sky’s cornering techniques, all while he very casually hooked an arm around Bloom’s waist.

She had almost forgotten about her guilt and worry when she caught sight of Riven and Darcy moving in their direction. Darcy had a container of fries and was feeding them to him at intervals, making intense eye contact with him as they walked and smiling in a coquettish manner.

“Eating out of the palm of her hand,” Stella muttered darkly. “She’s such a bitch, no wonder he likes her.”

“Is she really that bad?” Brandon asked.

“Oh yeah, she’s one of the witches that released the minotaur on us!”

“Should we say something then?” Sky looked to his date for how to handle this development. Stella nodded, and strode out towards the other two.

“Darcy!” She yelled. “What do you think you’re doing with Riven?”

“Huh?” Riven looked confused around a fry in his mouth.

“I’m making sure he’s okay,” Darcy said, sounding uncharacteristically meek and embarrassed, like a puppy caught chewing on the furniture. “He had a nasty accident and it would be bad if he lost consciousness.” It was like she was a totally different person; Bloom hoped it was because she was away from Icy and Stormy’s influence and not because Stella was right.

“We know! We were there!”

“Then why didn’t you come help me, huh?” Riven said, taking a step forward and physically shielding Darcy from the princess. “Or any of you? You don’t even know Darcy, so you can all fuck off.”

“Dude, there were paramedics…” Brandon started but was cut off by Sky.

“We’re your friends, arsehole, and you remember what happened last time we met her and her buddies, right?”

“That was an accident,” Darcy protested weakly. “It got completely out of hand…”

“‘Friends’?” Riven laughed. “You made me crash! I had it until you swerved!”

“Are you kidding me?! That crash was all on you! You can’t push your bike like that’d expect it to behave normally.”

Bloom winced as the shouting continued. Stella attempted to pull Sky away to defuse the situation but he stood firmly in place until she gave up.

“Let’s get out of here,” the princess said, retreating back to Brandon and Bloom. “They’re making a scene and I don’t want to be part of it.”

Bloom pathetically waved goodbye to Brandon who was helpless but to take up his place next to his charge as the shouting match continued. He gave her an apologetic smile as she was frogmarched to the bus stop by Stella.

“I don’t think the dance is going to happen,” Bloom said glumly as they queued up to get on the next shuttle to Alfea.

“You can always go out with him another time, and, trust me, it wouldn’t have been any fun stuck with those guys all arguing.” Stella was probably right; neither Sky nor Riven were likely to back down anytime soon and Brandon would be forced to wait by the prince regardless of whether he had a date or not. She tried not to think about the unfortunate change of plans and ended up on a different but equally unhappy train of thought.

“What do we tell Musa?”

“Huh?”

“About Riven and Darcy?”

It was hardly a good day for her anyway; and now the guy she had liked since before the term began was making eyes at one of the girls that had almost maimed them.

“Hmm, probably not worth bothering her about it today, bigger things on her mind, and we can hope that this is just a fling and they’re not actually getting together.”

Bloom nodded, deferring to Stella’s superior social wisdom, and would certainly join her in hoping that was the case, but she thought that it was unlikely, especially considering the way Riven had been looking at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Also, my computer keyboard is a little fucked right now and I had to do the editing for this one all myself, so please forgive any mistakes here)


End file.
